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LAFCADIO  HEARN.     Drawn  by  Krieghoflf 

\a  new  collection  of  Mr.  Hearn's  writings  will  be  published 
I  t.ns  fal.  under  the  title  "American  Miscellanies"  (Doid 
;     Mead;. 

W 


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BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

from  the  lectures  of 
LAFCADIO    HEARN 

Selected  and  Edited  with  an  Introduction 

h 
JOHN    ERSKINE 

Professor  of  English 
Columbia  Uni'uersity 


NEW  YORK 

DODD,    MEAD   AND  COMPANY 

1921 


Copyright,  igis,  1916,  igi7.  1921 
By  MITCHELL  McDONALD 


FEIITTED  IK  THE  D.   8.  A. 


BOOK      MANUFACTURERS 
NAMWAV  NIW     JIRBir 


Collegt 
Ijbrarr 


INTRODUCTION 


511 
H35b 


These  chapters,  for  the  most  part,  are  reprinted 
from  Lafcadio  Hearn's  "Interpretations  of  Lit- 
erature," 19 15,  from  his  "Life  and  Literature," 

19 1 6,  and  from  his  "Appreciations  of  Poetry," 

19 1 7.  Three  chapters  appear  here  for  the  first 
time.  They  are  all  taken  from  the  student  notes 
of  Hearn's  lectures  at  the  University  of  Tokyo, 
1 896-1902,  sufficiently  described  in  the  earlier 
volumes  just  mentioned.  They  are  now  pub- 
lished in  this  regrouping  in  response  to  a  demand 
for  a  further  selection  of  the  lectures,  in  a  less 
expensive  volume  and  with  emphasis  upon  those 
papers  which  illustrate  Hearn's  extraordinary 
ability  to  interpret  the  exotic  in  life  and  in  books. 

It  should  be  remembered  that  these  lectures 
were  delivered  to  Japanese  students,  and  that 
Hearn's  purpose  was  not  only  to  impart  the  in- 
formation about  Western  literature  usually  to  be 
found  in  our  histories  and  text-books,  but  much 
more  to  explain  to  the  Oriental  mind  those  pe- 
culiarities of  our  civilization  which  might  be  hard 
to  understand  on  the  further  side  of  the  Pacific 
Ocean.  The  lectures  are  therefore  unique,  in  that 
they  are  the  first  large  attempt  by  a  Western 
critic  to  interpret  us  to  the  East.     That  we  shall 


1265514 


vi  INTRODUCTION 

be  deeply  concerned  in  the  near  future  to  continue 
this  interpretation  on  an  even  larger  scale,  no  one 
of  us  doubts.  We  wish  we  might  hope  for  an- 
other genius  like  Hearn  to  carry  on  the  work. 

The  merit  of  the  chapters  printed  or  reprinted 
in  the  present  volume  seems  to  me  their  power  to 
teach  us  to  imagine  our  familiar  traditions  as 
foreign  and  exotic  in  the  eyes  of  other  peoples. 
We  are  accustomed,  like  every  one  else,  to  think 
of  our  literature  as  the  final  product  of  other  lit- 
eratures— as  a  terminal  in  itself,  rather  than  as 
a  channel  through  which  great  potentialities  might 
flow.  Like  other  men,  we  are  accustomed  to 
think  of  ourselves  as  native,  under  all  circum- 
stances, and  of  other  people  at  all  times  as  for- 
eign. While  we  were  staying  in  their  country,  did 
we  not  think  of  the  French  as  foreigners?  In 
these  chapters,  not  originally  intended  for  us,  we 
have  the  piquant  and  salutary  experience  of  see- 
ing what  we  look  like  on  at  least  one  occasion 
when  we  are  the  foreigners;  we  catch  at  least  a 
glimpse  of  what  to  the  Orient  seems  exotic  in  us, 
and  it  does  us  no  harm  to  observe  that  the  pe- 
culiarly Western  aspects  of  our  culture  are  not 
self-justifying  nor  always  justifiable  when  looked 
at  through  eyes  not  already  disposed  in  their 
favour.  Hearn  was  one  of  the  most  loyal  advo- 
cates the  West  could  possibly  have  sent  to  the 
East,  but  he  was  an  honest  artist,  and  he  never 
tried  to  improve  his  case  by  trimming  a  fact.    His 


INTRODUCTION  vii 

interpretation  of  us,  therefore,  touches  our  sen- 
sitiveness in  regions — and  in  a  degree — which 
perhaps  his  Japanese  students  were  unconscious 
of;  we  too  marvel  as  well  as  they  at  his  skill  in 
explaining,  but  we  are  sensitive  to  what  he  found 
necessary  to  explain.  We  read  less  for  the  ex- 
planation than  for  the  inventory  of  ourselves. 

Any  interpretation  of  life  which  looks  closely 
to  the  facts  will  probably  increase  our  sense  of 
mystery  and  of  strangeness  in  common  things.  If 
on  the  other  hand  it  is  a  theory  of  experience 
which  chiefly  interests  us,  we  may  divert  our  at- 
tention somewhat  from  the  experience  to  the 
theory,  leaving  the  world  as  humdrum  as  it  was 
before  we  explained  it.  In  that  case  we  must 
seek  the  exotic  in  remote  places  and  in  exceptional 
conditions,  if  we  are  to  observe  it  at  all.  But 
Lafcadio  Hearn  cultivated  in  himself  and  taught 
his  students  to  cultivate  a  quick  alertness  to  those 
qualities  of  life  to  which  we  are  usually  dulled 
by  habit.  Education  as  he  conceived  of  it  had 
for  its  purpose  what  Pater  says  is  the  end  of 
philosophy,  to  rouse  the  human  spirit,  to  startle  it 
into  sharp  and  eager  observation.  It  is  a  sign 
that  dulness  is  already  spreading  in  us,  if  we 
must  go  far  afield  for  the  stimulating,  the  won- 
drous, the  miraculous.  The  growing  sensitiveness 
of  a  sound  education  would  help  us  to  distinguish 
these  qualities  of  romance  in  the  very  heart  of  our 
daily  life.     To  have  so  distinguished  them  Is  in 


viii  INTRODUCTION 

my  opinion  the  felicity  of  Hearn  in  these  chapters. 
When  he  was  writing  of  Japan  for  European  or 
American  readers,  we  caught  easily  enough  the 
exotic  atmosphere  of  the  island  kingdom — easily 
enough,  since  it  was  the  essence  of  a  world  far 
removed  from  ours.  The  exotic  note  is  quite  as 
strong  in  these  chapters.  We  shall  begin  to  ap- 
preciate Hearn's  genius  when  we  reflect  that  here 
he  finds  for  us  the  exotic  in  ourselves. 

The  first  three  chapters  deal  from  different 
standpoints  with  the  same  subject — the  character- 
istic of  Western  civilization  which  to  the  East  is 
most  puzzling,  our  attitude  toward  women. 
Hearn  attempted  in  other  essays  also  to  do  full 
justice  to  this  fascinating  theme,  but  these  illus- 
trations are  typical  of  his  method.  To  the  Orien- 
tal It  is  strange  to  discover  a  civilization  in  which 
the  love  of  husband  and  wife  altogether  super- 
sedes the  love  of  children  for  their  parents,  yet 
this  is  the  civilization  he  will  meet  in  English  and 
in  most  Western  literatures.  He  can  understand 
the  love  of  individual  women,  as  we  understand 
the  love  of  individual  men,  but  he  will  not  easily 
understand  our  worship  of  women  as  a  sex,  our 
esteem  of  womankind,  our  chivalry,  our  way  of 
taking  woman  as  a  religion.  How  difficult,  then, 
will  he  find  such  a  poem  as  Tennyson's  "Princess," 
or  most  English  novels.  He  will  wonder  why 
the  majority  of  all  Western  stories  are  love 
stories,  and  why  in  English  literature  the  love 


INTRODUCTION  ix 

story  takes  place  before  marriage,  whereas  in 
French  and  other  Continental  literatures  it  usually 
follows  marriage.  In  Japan  marriages  are  the 
concern  of  the  parents;  with  us  they  are  the  con- 
cern of  the  lovers,  who  must  choose  their  mates 
in  competition  more  or  less  open  with  other 
suitors.  No  wonder  the  rivalries  and  the  pre- 
carious technique  of  love-making  are  with  us  an 
obsession  quite  exotic  to  the  Eastern  mind.  But 
the  Japanese  reader,  if  he  would  understand  us, 
must  also  learn  how  it  is  that  we  have  two  ways 
of  reckoning  with  love — a  realistic  way,  which 
occupies'  itself  in  portraying  sex,  the  roots  of  the 
tree,  as  Hearn  says,  and  the  idealistic  way,  which 
tries  to  fix  and  reproduce  the  beautiful  illusion  of 
either  happy  or  unhappy  passion.  And  if  the 
Japanese  reader  has  learned  enough  of  our  world 
to  understand  all  this,  he  must  yet  visualize  our 
social  system  more  clearly  perhaps  than  most  of 
us  see  it,  if  he  would  know  why  so  many  of  our 
love  poems  are  addressed  to  the  woman  we  have 
not  yet  met.  When  we  begin  to  sympathize  with 
him  in  his  efforts  to  grasp  the  meaning  of  our 
literature,  we  are  at  last  awakened  ourselves  to 
some  notion  of  what  our  civilization  means,  and 
as  Hearn  guides  us  through  the  discipline,  we 
realize  an  exotic  quality  in  things  which  formerly 
we  took  for  granted. 

Lecturing  before  the  days  of  Imagism,  before 
the  attention  of  many  American  poets  had  been 


X  INTRODUCTION 

turned  to  Japanese  art,  Hearn  recognized  the 
scarcity  in  our  literature  of  those  short  forms  of 
verse  in  which  the  Greeks  as  well  as  the  Japanese 
excel.  The  epigram  with  us  is — or  was  until  re- 
cently— a  classical  tradition,  based  on  the  brief 
inscriptions  of  the  Greek  anthology  or  on  the 
sharp  satires  of  Roman  poetry;  we  had  no  native 
turn  for  the  form  as  an  expression  of  our  con- 
temporary life.  Since  Hearn  gave  his  very  sig- 
nificant lecture  we  have  discovered  for  ourselves 
an  American  kind  of  short  poem,  witty  rather 
than  poetic,  and  few  verse-forms  are  now  prac- 
tised more  widely  among  us.  Hearn  spoke  as  a 
prophet  or  as  a  shrewd  observer — which  is  the 
same  thing — when  he  pointed  out  the  possibility 
of  development  in  this  field  of  brevity.  He  saw 
that  Japan  was  closer  to  the  Greek  world  in  this 
practice  than  we  were,  and  that  our  indifference  to 
the  shorter  forms  constituted  a  peculiarity  which 
we  could  hardly  defend.  He  saw,  also,  in  the 
work  of  Heredia,  how  great  an  influence  Japanese 
painting  might  have  on  Western  literature,  even 
on  those  poets  who  had  no  other  acquaintance 
with  Japan.  In  this  point  also  his  observation 
has  proved  prophetic;  the  new  poets  in  America 
have  adopted  Japan,  as  they  have  adopted  Greece, 
as  a  literary  theme,  and  it  is  somewhat  exclusively 
from  the  fine  arts  of  either  country  that  they  draw 
their  idea  of  its  life. 

The  next  chapters  which  are  brought  together 


INTRODUCTION  xi 

here,  consider  the  origin  and  the  nature  of  Eng- 
lish and  European  ethics.  Hearn  was  an  artist 
to  the  core,  and  as  a  writer  he  pursued  with  undi- 
vided purpose  that  beauty  which,  as  Keats  re- 
minded us,  is  truth.  In  his  creative  moments  he 
was  a  beauty-lover,  not  a  moralist.  But  when  he 
turned  critic  he  at  once  stressed  the  cardinal  im- 
portance of  ethics  in  the  study  of  literature.  The 
art  which  strives  to  end  in  beauty  will  reveal  even 
more  clearly  than  more  complex  forms  of  expres- 
sion the  personality  of  the  artist,  and  personality 
is  a  matter  of  character,  and  character  both  gov- 
erns the  choice  of  an  ethical  system  and  is  mod- 
ified by  it.  Literary  criticism  as  Hearn  practised 
it  is  little  interested  in  theology  or  in  the  system 
of  morals  publicly  professed;  it  is,  however,  pro- 
foundly concerned  with  the  ethical  principles  upon 
which  the  artist  actually  proceeds,  the  directions 
in  which  his  impulses  assert  themselves,  the  ver- 
dicts of  right  and  wrong  which  his  temperament 
pronounces  unconsciously,  it  may  be.  Here  is  the 
true  revelation  of  character,  Hearn  thinks,  even 
though  our  habitual  and  instinctive  ethics  may 
differ  widely  from  the  ethics  we  quite  sincerely 
profess.  Whether  we  know  it  or  not,  we  are  in 
such  matters  the  children  of  some  educational  or 
philosophical  system,  which,  preached  at  our  an- 
cestors long  ago,  has  come  at  last  to  envelop  us 
with  the  apparent  naturalness  of  the  air  we 
breathe.     It  is  a  spiritual  liberation  of  the  first 


xii  INTRODUCTION 

order,  to  envisage  such  an  atmosphere  as  what  it 
truly  is,  only  a  system  of  ethics  effectively  incul- 
cated, and  to  compare  the  principles  we  live  by 
with  those  we  thought  we  lived  by.  Hearn  was 
contriving  illumination  for  the  Japanese  when  he 
made  his  great  lecture  on  the  "Havamal,"  identi- 
fying in  the  ancient  Northern  poem  those' precepts 
which  laid  down  later  qualities  of  English  char- 
acter; for  the  Oriental  reader  it  would  be  easier 
to  identify  the  English  traits  in  Thackeray  or 
Dickens  or  Meredith  if  he  could  first  consider 
them  in  a  dogmatic  precept.  But  the  lecture  gives 
us,  I  think,  an  extraordinary  insight  into  our- 
selves, a  power  of  self-criticism  almost  disconcert- 
ing as  we  realize  not  only  the  persistence  of  ethical 
ideals  in  the  past,  but  also  the  possible  career  of 
new  ethical  systems  as  they  may  permeate  the 
books  written  to-day.  To  what  standard  will  the 
reader  of  our  contemporary  literature  be  uncon- 
sciously moulded?  What  account  will  be  given  of 
literature  a  thousand  years  from  now,  when  a 
later  critic  informs  himself  of  our  ethics  in  order 
to  understand  more  vitally  the  pages  in  which  he 
has  been  brought  up? 

Partly  to  inform  his  Japanese  students  still 
further  as  to  our  ethical  tendencies  in  literature, 
and  partly  I  think  to  indulge  his  own  speculation 
as  to  the  morality  that  will  be  found  in  the  litera- 
ture of  the  future,  Hearn  gave  his  remarkable 
lectures  on  the  ant-world,  following  Fabre  and 


INTRODUCTION  xiii 

other  European  investigators,  and  his  lecture  on 
"The  New  Ethics."  When  he  spoke,  over  twenty- 
years  ago,  the  socialistic  ideal  had  not  gripped  us 
so  effectually  as  it  has  done  in  the  last  decade,  but 
he  had  no  difficulty  in  observing  the  tendency. 
Civilization  in  some  later  cycle  may  wonder  at  our 
ambition  to  abandon  individual  liberty  and  re- 
sponsibility and  to  subside  into  the  social  instincts 
of  the  ant;  and  even  as  it  wonders,  that  far-off 
civilization  may  detect  in  itself  ant-like  reactions 
which  we  cultivated  for  it.  With  this  description 
of  the  ant-world  it  is  illuminating  to  read  the  two 
brilliant  chapters  on  English  and  French  poems 
about  insects.  Against  this  whole  background  of 
ethical  theory,  I  have  ventured  to  set  Hearn's 
singularly  objective  account  of  the  Bible. 

In  the  remaining  four  chapters  Hearn  speaks  of 
the  "Kalevala,"  of  the  mediseval  romance  "Amis 
and  Amile,"  of  William  Cory's  "lonica,"  and  of 
Theocritus.  These  chapters  deal  obviously  with 
literary  influences  which  have  become  part  and 
parcel  of  English  poetry,  yet  which  remain  exotic 
to  it,  if  we  keep  in  mind  the  Northern  stock  which 
still  gives  character,  ethical  and  otherwise,  to  the 
English  tradition.  The  "Kalevala,"  which  other- 
wise should  seem  nearest  to  the  basic  qualities  of 
our  poetry,  is  almost  unique,  as  Hearn  points  out, 
in  the  extent  of  its  preoccupation  with  enchant- 
ments and  charms,  with  the  magic  of  words. 
"Amis  and  Amile,"  which  otherwise  ought  to  seem 


xiv  INTRODUCTION 

more  foreign  to  us,  is  strangely  close  in  its  glori- 
fication of  friendship;  for  chivalry  left  with  us  at 
least  this  one  great  ethical  feeling,  that  to  keep 
faith  in  friendship  is  a  holy  thing.  No  wonder 
Amicus  and  Amelius  were  popular  saints.  The 
story  implies  also,  as  it  falls  here  in  the  book, 
some  illustration  of  those  unconscious  or  uncon- 
sidered ethical  reactions  which,  as  we  saw  in  the 
chapter  on  the  "Havamal,"  have  a  lasting  influence 
on  our  ideals  and  on  our  conduct. 

Romanticist  though  he  was,  Hearn  constantly 
sought  the  romance  in  the  highway  of  life,  the 
aspects  of  experience  which  seem  to  perpetuate 
themselves  from  age  to  age,  compelling  literature 
to  reassert  them  under  whatever  changes  of  form. 
To  one  who  has  followed  the  large  mass  of  his 
lectures  it  is  not  surprising  that  he  emphasized 
those  ethical  positions  which  are  likely  to  remain 
constant,  in  spite  of  much  new  philosophy,  nor 
that  he  constantly  recurred  to  such  books  as  Cory's 
"lonica,"  or  Lang's  translation  of  Theocritus,  in 
which  he  found  statements  of  enduring  human 
attitudes.  To  him  the  Greek  mind  made  a  double 
appeal.  Not  only  did  it  represent  to  him  the  best 
that  has  yet  been  thought  or  said  in  the  world,  but 
by  its  fineness  and  its  maturity  it  seemed  kindred 
to  the  spirit  he  found  in  ancient  Japan.  Lectur- 
ing to  Japanese  students  on  Greek  poetry  as  it 
filters  through  English  paraphrases  and  transla- 
tions, he  must  have  felt  sometimes  as  we  now  feel 


INTRODUCTION  xv 

in  reading  his  lectures,  that  in  his  teaching  the  long 
migration  of  the  world's  culture  was  approaching 
the  end  of  the  circuit,  and  that  the  earliest  appari- 
tion of  the  East  known  to  most  of  us  was  once 
more  arriving  at  its  starting  place,  mystery  return- 
ing to  mystery,  and  its  path  at  all  points  mysteri- 
ous, if  we  rightly  observe  the  miracle  of  the  human 
spirit. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction        .....     ..,  y 

I    The  Insuperable  Difficulty     .  i 

II    On  Love  in  English  Poetry  .      .  9 

III  The  Ideal  Woman  in  English 

Poetry 49 

IV  Note  Upon  the  Shortest  Forms 

OF  English  Poetry      ...       77 
V    Some  Foreign  Poems  on  Japanese 

Subjects 86 

VI    The  Bible  in  English  Litera- 
ture         92 

VII    The  "Havamal"       ....     106 

VIII     Beyond  Man 134 

IX    The  New  Ethics 145 

X    Some  Poems  About  Insects   .      .     159 
XI     Some  French  Poems  About 

Insects         204 

XII  Note  on  the  Influence  of  Fin- 
nish Poetry  in  English  Liter- 
ature       228 

XIII  The  Most  Beautiful  Romance 

OF  THE  Middle  Ages     .      .     .     261 

XIV  "loNicA" 279 

XV    Old  Greek  Fragments    .     .     .     312 


BOOKS  AND  HABITS 


BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  INSUPERABLE   DIFFICULTY 

I  WISH  to  speak  of  the  greatest  difficulty  with 
which  the  Japanese  students  of  English  literature, 
or  of  almost  any  Western  literature,  have  to  con- 
tend. I  do  not  think  that  it  ever  has  been  prop- 
erly spoken  about.  A  foreign  teacher  might  well 
hesitate  to  speak  about  it — because,  if  he  should 
try  to  explain  it  merely  from  the  Western  point 
of  view,  he  could  not  hope  to  be  understood;  and 
if  he  should  try  to  speak  about  it  from  the  Jap- 
anese point  of  view,  he  would  be  certain  to  make 
various  mistakes  and  to  utter  various  extrava- 
gances. The  proper  explanation  might  be  given 
by  a  Japanese  professor  only,  who  should  have 
so  intimate  an  acquaintance  with  Western  life  as 
to  sympathize  with  it.  Yet  I  fear  that  it  would 
be  difficult  to  find  such  a  Japanese  professor  for 
this  reason,  that  just  in  proportion  as  he  should 
find  himself  in  sympathy  with  Western  life,  in  that 
proportion  he  would  become  less  and  less  able  to 
communicate  that  sympathy  to  his  students.  The 
difficulties  are  so  great  that  it  has  taken  me  many 
years  even  to  partly  guess  how  great  they  are. 


2  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

That  they  can  be  removed  at  the  present  day  is 
utterly  out  of  the  question.  But  something  may 
be  gained  by  stating  them  even  imperfectly.  At 
the  risk  of  making  blunders  and  uttering  extrava- 
gances, I  shall  make  the  attempt.  I  am  impelled 
to  do  so  by  a  recent  conversation  with  one  of  the 
cleverest  students  that  I  ever  had,  who  acknowl- 
edged his  total  inability  to  understand  some  of  the 
commonest  facts  in  Western  life, — all  those  facts 
relating,  directly  or  indirectly,  to  the  position  of 
woman  in  Western  literature  as  reflecting  West- 
ern life. 

Let  us  clear  the  ground  at  once  by  putting  down 
some  facts  in  the  plainest  and  lowest  terms  pos- 
sible. You  must  try  to  imagine  a  country  in  which 
the  place  of  the  highest  virtue  is  occupied,  so  to 
speak,  by  the  devotion  of  sex  to  sex.  The  highest 
duty  of  the  man  is  not  to  his  father,  but  to  his 
wife;  and  for  the  sake  of  that  woman  he  abandons 
all  other  earthly  ties,  should  any  of  these  happen 
to  interfere  with  that  relation.  The  first  duty  of 
the  wife  may  be,  indeed,  must  be,  to  her  child, 
when  she  has  one;  but  otherwise  her  husband  is 
her  divinity  and  king.  In  that  country  it  would  be 
thought  unnatural  or  strange  to  have  one's  par- 
ents living  in  the  same  house  with  wife  or  husband. 
You  know  all  this.  But  it  does  not  explain  for 
you  other  things,  much  more  difficult  to  under- 
stand, especially  the  influence  of  the  abstract  idea 
of  woman  upon  society  at  large  as  well  as  upon 


THE  INSUPERABLE  DIFFICULTY       3 

the  conduct  of  the  individual.  The  devotion  of 
man  to  woman  does  not  mean  at  all  only  the  de- 
votion of  husband  to  wife.  It  means  actually  this, 
— that  every  man  is  bound  by  conviction  and  by 
opinion  to  put  all  women  before  himself,  simply 
because  they  are  women.  I  do  not  mean  that  any 
man  is  likely  to  think  of  any  woman  as  being  his 
intellectual  and  physical  superior;  but  I  do  mean 
that  he  is  bound  to  think  of  her  as  something 
deserving  and  needing  the  help  of  every  man.  In 
time  of  danger  the  woman  must  be  saved  first. 
In  time  of  pleasure,  the  woman  must  be  given  the 
best  place.  In  time  of  hardship  the  woman's  share 
of  the  common  pain  must  be  taken  voluntarily  by 
the  man  as  much  as  possible.  This  is  not  with 
any  view  to  recognition  of  the  kindness  shown. 
The  man  who  assists  a  woman  in  danger  is  not 
supposed  to  have  any  claim  upon  her  for  that 
reason.  He  has  done  his  duty  only,  not  to  her, 
the  individual,  but  to  womankind  at  large.  So  we 
have  arrived  at  this  general  fact,  that  the  first 
place  in  all  things,  except  rule,  is  given  to  woman 
in  Western  countries,  and  that  it  Is  given  almost 
religiously. 

Is  woman  a  religion?  Well,  perhaps  you  will 
have  the  chance  of  judging  for  yourselves  If  you 
go  to  America.  There  you  will  find  men  treating 
women  with  just  the  same  respect  formerly  ac- 
corded only  to  religious  dignitaries  or  to  great 
nobles.    Everywhere  they  are  saluted  and  helped 


4  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

to  the  best  places ;  everywhere  they  are  treated  as 
superior  beings.  Now  if  we  find  reverence,  loy- 
alty and  all  kinds  of  sacrifices  devoted  either  to  a 
human  being  or  to  an  image,  we  are  inclined  to 
think  of' worship.  And  worship  it  is.  If  a  West- 
ern man  should  hear  me  tell  you  this,  he  would 
want  the  statement  qualified,  unless  he  happened 
to  be  a  philosopher.  But  I  am  trying  to  put  the 
facts  before  you  in  the  way  in  which  you  can 
best  understand  them.  Let  me  say,  then,  that  the 
all-important  thing  for  the  student  of  English 
literature  to  try  to  understand,  is  that  in  Western 
countries  woman  is  a  cult,  a  religion,  or  if  you  like 
still  plainer  language,  I  shall  say  that  in  Western 
countries  woman  is  a  god. 

So  much  for  the  abstract  idea  of  woman.  Prob- 
ably you  will  not  find  that  particularly  strange; 
the  idea  is  not  altogether  foreign  to  Eastern 
thought,  and  there  are  very  extensive  systems  of 
feminine  pantheism  in  India.  Of  course  the 
Western  idea  is  only  in  the  romantic  sense  a  fem- 
inine pantheism;  but  the  Oriental  idea  may  serve 
to  render  it  more  comprehensive^.  The  ideas  of 
divine  Mother  and  divine  Creator  may  be  studied 
in  a  thousand  forms;  I  am  now  referring  rather 
to  the  sentiment,  to  the  feeling,  than  to  the  philo- 
sophical conception. 

You  may  ask,  if  the  idea  or  sentiment  of  di- 
vinity attaches  to  woman  in  the  abstract,  what 
about  woman  in  the  concrete — individual  woman? 


THE  INSUPERABLE  DIFFICULTY       5 

Are  women  individually  considered  as  gods? 
Well,  that  depends  on  how  you  define  the  word 
god.  The  following  definition  would  cover  the 
ground,  I  think: — "Gods  are  beings  superior  to 
man,  capable  of  assisting  or  injuring  him,  and  to 
be  placated  by  sacrifice  and  prayer."  Now  ac- 
cording to  this  definition,  I  think  that  the  attitude 
of  man  towards  woman  in  Western  countries 
might  be  very  well  characterized  as  a  sort  of  wor- 
ship. In  the  upper  classes  of  society,  and  in  the 
middle  classes  also,  great  reverence  towards 
women  is  exacted.  Men  bow  down  before  them, 
make  all  kinds  of  sacrifices  to  please  them,  beg 
for  their  good  will  and  their  assistance.  It  does 
not  matter  that  this  sacrifice  is  not  in  the  shape 
of  incense  burning  or  of  temple  offerings;  nor  does 
it  matter  that  the  prayers  are  of  a  different  kind 
from  those  pronounced  in  churches.  There  is 
sacrifice  and  worship.  And  no  saying  is  more 
common,  no  truth  better  known,  than  that  the  man 
who  hopes  to  succeed  in  life  must  be  able  to  please 
the  women.  Every  young  man  who  goes  into  any 
kind  of  society  knows  this.  It  is  one  of  the  first 
lessons  that  he  has  to  learn.  Well,  am  I  very 
wrong  in  saying  that  the  attitude  of  men  towards 
women  in  the  West  is  much  like  the  attitude  of 
men  towards  gods? 

But  you  may  answer  at  once, — How  comes  it, 
if  women  are  thus  reverenced  as  you  say,  that  men 
of  the  lower  classes  beat  and  ill-treat  their  wives 


6  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

in  those  countries?  I  must  reply,  for  the  same 
reason  that  Italian  and  Spanish  sailors  will  beat 
and  abuse  the  images  of  the  saints  and  virgins  to 
whom  they  pray,  when  their  prayer  is  not  granted. 
It  is  quite  possible  to  worship  an  image  sincerely, 
and  to  seek,  vengeance  upon  it  in  a  moment  of 
anger.  The  one  feeling  does  not  exclude  the 
other.  What  in  the  higher  classes  may  be  a  re- 
ligion, in  the  lower  classes  may  be  only  a  super- 
stition, and  strange  contradictions  exist,  side  by 
side,  in  all  forms  of  superstition.  Certainly  the 
Western  working  man  or  peasant  does  not  think 
about  his  wife  or  his  neighbour's  wife  in  the  rev- 
erential way  that  the  man  of  the  superior  class 
does.  But  you  will  find,  if  you  talk  to  them,  that 
something  of  the  reverential  idea  is  there;  it  is 
there  at  least  during  their  best  moments. 

Now  there  is  a  certain  exaggeration  in  what  I 
have  said.  But  that  is  only  because  of  the  some- 
what narrow  way  in  which  I  have  tried  to  express 
a  truth.  I  am  anxious  to  give  you  the  idea  that 
throughout  the  West  there  exists,  though  with  a 
difference  according  to  class  and  culture,  a  senti- 
ment about  women  quite  as  reverential  as  a  sen- 
timent of  religion.  This  is  true;  and  not  to  under- 
stand it,  is  not  to  understand  Western  literature. 

How  did  it  come  into  existence?  Through 
many  causes,  some  of  which  are  so  old  that  we 
can  not  know  anything  about  them.  This  feeling 
did  not  belong  to  the  Greek  and  Roman  civiliza- 


THE  INSUPERABLE  DIFFICULTY       7 

tion,  but  it  belonged  to  the  life  of  the  old  North- 
ern races,  who  have  since  spread  over  the  world, 
planting  their  ideas  everywhere.  In  the  oldest 
Scandinavian  literature  you  will  find  that  women 
were  thought  of  and  treated  by  the  men  of  the 
North  very  much  as  they  are  thought  of  and 
treated  by  Englishmen  of  to-day.  You  will  find 
what  their  power  was  in  the  old  sagas,  such  as  the 
Njal-Saga,  or  "The  Story  of  Burnt  Njal."  But 
we  must  go  much  further  than  the  written  litera- 
ture to  get  a  full  knowledge  of  the  origin  of  such 
a  sentiment.  The  idea  seems  to  have  existed  that 
woman  was  semi-divine,  because  she  was  the 
mother,  the  creator  of  man.  And  we  know  that 
she  was  credited  among  the  Norsemen  with  super- 
natural powers.  But  upon  this  Northern  founda- 
tion there  was  built  up  a  highly  complex  fabric  of 
romantic  and  artistic  sentiment.  The  Christian 
worship  of  the  Virgin  Mary  harmonized  with  the 
Northern  belief.  The  sentiment  of  chivalry  re- 
inforced it.  Then  came  the  artistic  resurrection  of 
the  Renaissance,  and  the  new  reverence  for  the 
beauty  of  the  old  Greek  gods,  and  the  Greek  tra- 
ditions of  female  divinities;  these  also  coloured 
and  lightened  the  old  feeling  about  womankind. 
Think  also  of  the  effect  with  which  literature, 
poetry  and  the  arts  have  since  been  cultivating 
and  developing  the  sentiment.  Consider  how  the 
great  mass  of  Western  poetry  is  love  poetry,  and 
the  greater  part  of  Western  fiction  love  stories. 


8  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

Of  course  the  foregoing  is  only  the  vaguest  sug- 
gestion of  a  truth.  Really  my  object  is  not  to 
trouble  you  at  all  about  the  evolutional  history 
of  the  sentiment,  but  only  to  ask  you  to  think  what 
this  sentiment  means  in  literature.  I  am  not  ask- 
ing you  to  sympathize  with  it,  but  if  you  could 
sympathize  with  it  you  would  understand  a  thou- 
sand things  in  Western  books  which  otherwise 
must  remain  dim  and  strange.  I  am  not  expect- 
ing that  you  can  sympathize  with  it.  But  it  is 
absolutely  necessary  that  you  should  understand 
its  relation  to  language  and  literature.  There- 
fore I  have  to  tell  you  that  you  should  try  to  think 
of  it  as  a  kind  of  religion,  a  secular,  social,  artistic 
religion,  not  to  be  confounded  with  any  national 
religion.  It  is  a  kind  of  race  feeling  or  race  creed. 
It  has  not  originated  in  any  sensuous  idea,  but  in 
some  very  ancient  superstitious  idea.  Nearly  all 
forms  of  the  highest  sentiment  and  the  highest 
faith  and  the  highest  art  have  had  their  beginnings 
in  equally  humble  soil. 


CHAPTER  II 

ON   LOVE   IN   ENGLISH   POETRY 

I  OFTEN  imagine  that  the  longer  he  studies  Eng- 
lish literature  the  more  the  Japanese  student  must 
be  astonished  at  the  extraordinary  predominance 
given  to  the  passion  of  love  both  in  fiction  and  in 
poetry.  Indeed,  by  this  time  I  have  begun  to  feel 
a  little  astonished  at  it  myself.  Of  course,  be- 
fore I  came  to  this  country  it  seemed  to  me  quite 
natural  that  love  should  be  the  chief  subject  of 
literature ;  because  I  did  not  know  anything  about 
any  other  kind  of  society  except  Western  society. 
But  to-day  it  really  seems  to  me  a  little  strange. 
If  it  seems  strange  to  me,  how  much  more  ought 
it  to  seem  strange  to  you !  Of  course,  the  simple 
explanation  of  the  fact  is  that  marriage  is  the  most 
important  act  of  man's  life  in  Europe  or  America, 
and  that  everything  depends  upon  it.  It  is  quite 
different  on  this  side  of  the  world.  But  the  simple 
explanation  of  the  difference  is  not  enough.  There 
are  many  things  to  be  explained.  Why  should 
not  only  the  novel  writers  but  all  the  poets  make 
love  the  principal  subject  of  their  work?  I  never 
knew,  because  I  never  thought,  how  much  English 
literature  was  saturated  with  the  subject  of  love 

9 


10  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

until  I  attempted  to  make  selections  of  poetry  and 
prose  for  class  use — naturally  endeavouring  to 
select  such  pages  or  poems  as  related  to  other 
subjects  than  passion.  Instead  of  finding  a  good 
deal  of  what  I  was  looking  for,  I  could  find 
scarcely  anything.  The  great  prose  writers,  out- 
side of  the  essay  or  history,  are  nearly  all  famous 
as  tellers  of  love  stories.  And  it  is  almost  im- 
possible to  select  half  a  dozen  stanzas  of  classic 
verse  from  Tennyson  or  Rossetti  or  Browning  or 
Shelley  or  Byron,  which  do  not  contain  anything 
about  kissing,  embracing,  or  longing  for  some 
imaginary  or  real  beloved.  Wordsworth,  indeed, 
is  something  of  an  exception;  and  Coleridge  is 
most  famous  for  a  poem  which  contains  nothing  at 
all  about  love.  But  exceptions  do  not  affect  the 
general  rule  that  love  is  the  theme  of  English 
poetry,  as  it  is  also  of  French,  Italian,  Spanish,  or 
German  poetry.     It  is  the  dominant  motive. 

So  with  the  English  novelists.  There  have  been 
here  also  a  few  exceptions — such  as  the  late  Rob- 
ert Louis  Stevenson,  most  of  whose  novels  con- 
tain little  about  women;  they  are  chiefly  novels  or 
romances  of  adventure.  But  the  exceptions  are 
very  few.  At  the  present  time  there  are  produced 
almost  every  year  in  England  about  a  thousand 
new  novels,  and  all  of  these  or  nearly  all  are  love 
stories.  To  write  a  novel  without  a  woman  in  it 
would  be  a  dangerous  undertaking;  in  ninety-nine 
cases  out  of  a  hundred  the  book  would  not  sell. 


LOVE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY         ii 

Of  course  all  this  means  that  the  English  peo- 
ple throughout  the  world,  as  readers,  are  chiefly 
interested  in  the  subject  under  discussion.  When 
you  find  a  whole  race  interested  more  in  one  thing 
than  in  anything  else,  you  may  be  sure  that  it  is 
so  because  the  subject  is  of  paramount  importance 
in  the  life  of  the  average  person.  You  must  try 
to  imagine  then,  a  society  in  which  every  man  must 
choose  his  wife,  and  every  woman  must  choose  her 
husband,  independent  of  all  outside  help,  and  not 
only  choose  but  obtain  if  possible.  The  great 
principle  of  Western  society  is  that  competition 
rules  here  as  it  rules  in  everything  else.  The  best 
man — that  is  to  say,  the  strongest  and  cleverest — 
is  likely  to  get  the  best  woman,  in  the  sense  of 
the  most  beautiful  person.  The  weak,  the  feeble, 
the  poor,  and  the  ugly  have  little  chance  of  being 
able  to  marry  at  all.  Tens  of  thousands  of  men 
and  women  can  not  possibly  marry.  I  am  speak- 
ing of  the  upper  and  middle  classes.  The  work- 
ing people,  the  peasants,  the  labourers,  these 
marry  young;  but  the  competition  there  is  just  the 
same — just  as  difficult,  and  only  a  little  rougher. 
So  it  may  be  said  that  every  man  has  a  struggle 
of  some  kind  in  order  to  marry,  and  that  there  is 
a  kind  of  fight  or  contest  for  the  possession  of 
every  woman  worth  having.  Taking  this  view  of 
Western  society  not  only  in  England  but  through- 
out all  Europe,  you  will  easily  be  able  to  see  why 
the  Western  public  have  reason  to  be  more  inter- 


12  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

ested  in  literature  which  treats  of  love  than  in 
any  other  kind  of  literature. 

But  although  the  conditions  that  1  have  been 
describing  are  about  the  same  in  all  Western 
countries,  the  tone  of  the  literature  which  deals 
with  love  is  not  at  all  the  same.  There  are  very 
great  differences.  In  prose  they  are  much  more 
serious  than  in  poetry;  because  in  all  countries  a 
man  is  allowed,  by  public  opinion,  more  freedom 
in  verse  than  in  prose.  Now  these  differences  in 
the  way  of  treating  the  subject  in  different  coun- 
tries really  indicate  national  differences  of  char- 
acter. Northern  love  stories  and  Northern  poetry 
about  love  are  very  serious;  and  these  authors  are 
kept  within  fixed  limits.  Certain  subjects  are  gen- 
erally forbidden.  For  example,  the  English  pub- 
lic wants  novels  about  love,  but  the  love  must  be 
the  love  of  a  girl  who  is  to  become  somebody's 
wife.  The  rule  in  the  English  novel  is  to  describe 
the  pains,  fears,  and  struggles  of  the  period  be- 
fore marriage — the  contest  in  the  world  for  the 
right  of  marriage.  A  man  must  not  write  a  novel 
about  any  other  point  of  love.  Of  course  there 
are  plenty  of  authors  who  have  broken  this  rule, 
but  the  rule  still  exists.  A  man  may  represent  a 
contest  between  two  women,  one  good  and  one 
bad,  but  if  the  bad  woman  is  allowed  to  conquer 
in  the  story,  the  public  will  growl.  This  English 
fashion  has  existed  since  the  eighteenth  century, 


LOVE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY         13 

since  the  time  of  Richardson,  and  is  likely  to  last 
for  generations  to  come. 

Now  this  is  not  the  rule  at  all  which  governs 
the  making  of  novels  in  France.  French  novels 
generally  treat  of  the  relations  of  women  to  the 
world  and  to  lovers,  after  marriage;  consequently 
there  is  a  great  deal  in  French  novels  about  adul- 
tery, about  improper  relations  between  the  sexes, 
about  many  things  which  the  English  public  would 
not  allow.  This  does  not  mean  that  the  English 
are  morally  a  better  people  than  the  French  or 
other  Southern  races.  But  it  does  mean  that  there 
are  great  differences  in  the  social  conditions.  One 
such  difference  can  be  very  briefly  expressed.  An 
English  girl,  an  American  girl,  a  Norwegian,  a 
Dane,  a  Swede,  is  allowed  all  possible  liberty  be- 
fore marriage.  The  girl  is  told,  "You  must  be 
able  to  take  care  of  yourself,  and  not  do  wrong." 
After  marriage  there  is  no  more  such  liberty. 
After  marriage  in  all  Northern  countries  a  wom- 
an's conduct  is  strictly  watched.  But  in  France, 
and  in  Southern  countries,  the  young  girl  has  no 
liberty  before  marriage.  She  is  always  under  the 
guard  of  her  brother,  her  father,  her  mother,  or 
some  experienced  relation.  She  is  accompanied 
wherever  she  walks.  She  is  not  allowed  to  see 
her  betrothed  except  in  the  presence  of  witnesses. 
But  after  marriage  her  liberty  begins.  Then  she 
is  told  for  the  first  time  that  she  must  take  care  of 


14  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

herself.  Well,  you  will  see  that  the  conditions 
which  inspire  the  novels,  in  treating  of  the  subject 
of  love  and  marriage,  are  very  different  in  North- 
ern and  in  Southern  Europe.  For  this  reason 
alone  the  character  of  the  novel  produced  in 
England  could  not  be  the  same. 

You  must  remember,  however,  that  there  are 
many  other  reasons  for  this  difference — reasons 
of  literary  sentiment.  The  Southern  or  Latin 
races  have  been  civilized  for  a  much  longer  time 
than  the  Northern  races;  they  have  inherited  the 
feelings  of  the  ancient  world,  the  old  Greek  and 
Roman  world,  and  they  think  still  about  the  re- 
lation of  the  sexes  in  very  much  the  same  way  that 
the  ancient  poets  and  romance  writers  used  to 
think.  And  they  can  do  things  which  English 
writers  can  not  do,  because  their  language  has 
power  of  more  delicate  expression. 

We  may  say  that  the  Latin  writers  still  speak 
of  love  in  very  much  the  same  way  that  it  was 
considered  before  Christianity.  But  when  I  speak 
of  Christianity  I  am  only  referring  to  an  historical 
date.  Before  Christianity  the  Northern  races  also 
thought  about  love  very  much  in  the  same  way 
that  their  best  poets  do  at  this  day.  The  ancient 
Scandinavian  literature  would  show  this.  The 
Viking,  the  old  sea-pirate,  felt  very  much  as  Ten- 
nyson or  as  Meredith  would  feel  upon  this  sub- 
ject; he  thought  of  only  one  kind  of  love  as  real — 
that  which  ends  in  marriage,  the  affection  between 


LOVE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY         15 

husband  and  wife.  Anything  else  was  to  him  mere 
folly  and  weakness.  Christianity  did  not  change 
his  sentiment  on  this  subject.  The  modern  Eng- 
lishman, Swede,  Dane,  Norwegian,  or  German 
regards  love  in  exactly  that  deep,  serious,  noble 
way  that  his  pagan  ancestors  did.  I  think  we  can 
say  that  different  races  have  differences  of  feeling 
on  sexual  relations,  which  differences  are  very 
much  older  than  any  written  history.  They  are 
In  the  blood  and  soul  of  a  people,  and  neither  re- 
ligion nor  civilization  can  utterly  change  them. 

So  far  I  have  been  speaking  particularly  about 
the  differences  in  English  and  French  novels;  and 
a  novel  is  especially  a  reflection  of  national  life, 
a  kind  of  dramatic  narration  of  truth,  in  the  form 
of  a  story.  But  in  poetry,  which  is  the  highest 
form  of  literature,  the  difference  is  much  more 
observable.  We  find  the  Latin  poets  of  to-day 
writing  just  as  freely  on  the  subject  of  love  as  the 
old  Latin  poets  of  the  age  of  Augustus,  while 
Northern  poets  observe  with  few  exceptions  great 
restraint  when  treating  of  this  theme.  Now 
where  is  the  line  to  be  drawn?  Are  the  Latins 
right?  Are  the  English  right?  How  are  we  to 
make  a  sharp  distinction  between  what  is  moral 
and  good  and  what  is  immoral  and  bad  in  treating 
love-subjects  ? 

Some  definition  must  be  attempted. 

What  is  meant  by  love?  As  used  by  Latin 
writers  the  word  has  a  range  of  meanings,  from 


1 6  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

that  of  the  sexual  relation  between  insects  or  ani- 
mals up  to  the  highest  form  of  religious  emotion, 
called  "The  love  of  God."  I  need  scarcely  say 
that  this  definition  is  too  loose  for  our  use.  The 
English  word,  by  general  consent,  means  both 
sexual  passion  and  deep  friendship.  This  again 
is  a  meaning  too  wide  for  our  purpose.  By  put- 
ting the  adjective  "true"  before  love,  some  defini- 
tion is  attempted  in  ordinary  conversation.  When 
an  Englishman  speaks  of  "true  love,"  he  usually 
means  something  that  has  no  passion  at  all;  he 
means  a  perfect  friendship  which  grows  up  be- 
tween man  and  wife  and  which  has  nothing  to 
do  with  the  passion  which  b-ought  the  pair  to- 
gether. But  when  the  English  poet  speaks  of 
love,  he  generally  means  passion,  not  friendship. 
I  am  only  stating  very  general  rules.  You  see 
how  confusing  the  subject  is,  how  difficult  to  define 
the  matter.  Let  us  leave  the  definition  alone 
for  a  moment,  and  consider  the  matter  philo- 
sophically. 

Some  very  foolish  persons  have  attempted  even 
within  recent  years  to  make  a  classification  of  dif- 
ferent kinds  of  love — love  between  the  sexes. 
They  talk  about  romantic  love,  and  other  such 
things.  All  that  is  utter  nonsense.  In  the  mean- 
ing of  sexual  affection  there  is  only  one  kind  of 
love,  the  natural  attraction  of  one  sex  for  the 
other;  and  the  only  difference  in  the  highest  form 
of  this  attraction  and  the  lowest  is  this,  that  in 


LOVE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY         17 

the  nobler  nature  a  vast  number  of  moral, 
aesthetic,  and  ethical  sentiments  are  related  to  the 
passion,  and  that  in  lower  natures  those  senti- 
ments are  absent.  Therefore  we  may  say  that 
even  in  the  highest  forms  of  the  sentiment  there 
is  only  one  dominant  feeling,  complex  though  it 
be,  the  desire  for  possession.  What  follows  the 
possession  we  may  call  love  if  we  please;  but  it 
might  better  be  called  perfect  friendship  and  sym- 
pathy. It  is  altogether  a  different  thing.  The 
love  that  is  the  theme  of  poets  in  all  countries  is 
really  love,  not  the  friendship  that  grows  out 
of  It. 

I  suppose  you  know  that  the  etymological 
meaning  of  "passion"  is  "a  state  of  suffering."  In 
regard  to  love,  the  word  has  particular  signifi- 
cance to  the  Western  mind,  for  it  refers  to  the 
time  of  struggle  and  doubt  and  longing  before 
the  object  is  attained.  Now  how  much  of  this 
passion  is  a  legitimate  subject  of  literary  art? 

The  difficulty  may,  I  think,  be  met  by  remem- 
bering the  extraordinary  character  of  the  mental 
phenomena  which  manifest  themselves  in  the  time 
of  passion.  There  is  during  that  time  a  strange 
illusion,  an  illusion  so  wonderful  that  it  has  en- 
gaged the  attention  of  great  philosophers  for 
thousands  of  years;  Plato,  you  know,  tried  to  ex- 
plain it  in  a  very  famous  theory.  I  mean  the  il- 
lusion that  seems  to  charm,  or  rather,  actually 
does  charm  the  senses  of  a  man  at  a  certain  time. 


1 8  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

To  his  eye  a  certain  face  has  suddenly  become  the 
most  beautiful  object  in  the  world.  To  his  ears 
the  accents  of  one  voice  become  the  sweetest  of  all 
music.  Reason  has  nothing  to  do  with  this,  and 
reason  has  no  power  against  the  enchantment. 
Out  of  Nature's  mystery,  somehow  or  other,  this 
strange  magic  suddenly  illuminates  the  senses  of 
a  man;  then  vanishes  again,  as  noiselessly  as  it 
came.  It  is  a  very  ghostly  thing,  and  can  not  be 
explained  by  any  theory  not  of  a  very  ghostly 
kind.  Even  Herbert  Spencer  has  devoted  his 
reasoning  to  a  new  theory  about  it.  I  need  not  go 
further  in  this  particular  than  to  tell  you  that  in  a 
certain  way  passion  is  now  thought  to  have  some- 
thing to  do  with  other  lives  than  the  present;  in 
short,  it  is  a  kind  of  organic  memory  of  relations 
that  existed  in  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  of 
former  states  of  being.  Right  or  wrong  though 
the  theories  may  be,  this  mysterious  moment  of 
love,  the  period  of  this  illusion,  is  properly  the 
subject  of  high  poetry,  simply  because  it  is  the 
most  beautiful  and  the  most  wonderful  experience 
of  a  human  life.    And  why? 

Because  in  the  brief  time  of  such  passion  the 
very  highest  and  finest  emotions  of  which  human 
nature  is  capable  are  brought  into  play.  In  that 
time  more  than  at  any  other  hour  in  life  do  men 
become  unselfish,  unselfish  at  least  toward  one 
human  being.  Not  only  unselfishness  but  self- 
sacrifice  is  a  desire  peculiar  to  the  period.     The 


LOVE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY        19 

young  man  in  love  is  not  merely  willing  to  give 
away  everything  that  he  possesses  to  the  person 
beloved;  he  wishes  to  suffer  pain,  to  meet  danger, 
to  risk  his  life  for  her  sake.  Therefore  Tenny- 
son, in  speaking  of  that  time,  beautifully  said: 

Love  took  up  the  harp  of  Life,  and  smote  on  all  the  chords 

with  might, 
Smote  the  chord  of  Self,  that,  trembling,  pass'd  in  music 

out  of  sight. 

Unselfishness  is,  of  course,  a  very  noble  feel- 
ing, independently  of  the  cause.  But  this  is  only 
one  of  the  emotions  of  a  higher  class  when  power- 
fully aroused.  There  is  pity,  tenderness — the 
same  kind  of  tenderness  that  one  feels  toward  a 
child — the  love  of  the  helpless,  the  desire  to  pro- 
tect. And  a  third  sentiment  felt  at  such  a  time 
more  strongly  than  at  any  other,  is  the  sentiment 
of  duty;  responsibilities  moral  and  social  are  then 
comprehended  in  a  totally  new  way.  Surely  none 
can  dispute  these  facts  nor  the  beauty  of  them. 

Moral  sentiments  are  the  highest  of  all;  but 
next  to  them  the  sentiment  of  beauty  in  itself,  the 
artistic  feeling,  is  also  a  very  high  form  of  intel- 
lectual and  even  of  secondary  moral  experience. 
Scientifically  there  is  a  relation  between  the  beau- 
tiful and  the  good,  between  the  physically  perfect 
and  the  ethically  perfect.  Of  course  it  is  not  ab- 
solute. There  is  nothing  absolute  in  this  world. 
But  the  relation  exists.    Whoever  can  comprehend 


20  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

the  highest  form  of  one  kind  of  beauty  must  be 
able  to  comprehend  something  of  the  other.  I 
know  very  well  that  the  ideal  of  the  love-season 
is  an  illusion;  in  nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine 
cases  out  of  the  thousand  the  beauty  of  the  woman 
is  only  imagined.  But  does  that  make  any  pos- 
sible difference?  I  do  not  think  that  it  does.  To 
imagine  beauty  is  really  to  see  it — not  objectively, 
perhaps,  but  subjectively  beyond  all  possibility  of 
doubt.  Though  you  see  the  beauty  only  in  your 
mind,  in  your  mind  it  is;  and  in  your  mind  its 
ethical  influence  must  operate.  During  the  time 
that  a  man  worships  even  imaginary  bodily 
beauty,  he  receives  some  secret  glimpse  of  a  higher 
kind  of  beauty — beauty  of  heart  and  mind.  Was 
there  ever  in  this  world  a  real  lover  who  did  not 
believe  the  woman  of  his  choice  to  be  not  only 
the  most  beautiful  of  mortals,  but  also  the  best  in 
a  moral  sense?  I  do  not  think  that  there  ever 
was. 

The  moral  and  the  ethical  sentiments  of  a  being 
thus  aroused  call  into  sudden  action  all  the  finer 
energies  of  the  man — the  capacities  for  effort,  for 
heroism,  for  high-pressure  work  of  any  sort,  men- 
tal or  physical,  for  all  that  requires  quickness  in 
thought  and  exactitude  in  act.  There  is  for  the 
time  being  a  sense  of  new  power.  Anything  that 
makes  strong  appeal  to  the  best  exercise  of  one's 
faculties  is  beneficent  and,  In  most  cases,  worthy 
of  reverence.     Indeed,  It  is  in  the  short  season  of 


LOVE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY        21 

which  I  am  speaking  that  we  always  discover  the 
best  of  everything  in  the  character  of  woman  or 
of  man.  In  that  period  the  evil  qualities,  the  un- 
generous side,  is  usually  kept  as  much  out  of  sight 
as  possible. 

Now  for  all  these  suggested  reasons,  as  for 
many  others  which  might  be  suggested,  the  period 
of  illusion  in  love  is  really  the  period  which  poets 
and  writers  of  romance  are  naturally  justified  in 
describing.  Can  they  go  beyond  it  with  safety, 
with  propriety?  That  depends  very  much  upon 
whether  they  go  up  or  down.  By  going  up  I  mean 
keeping  within  the  region  of  moral  idealism.  By 
going  down  I  mean  descending  to  the  level  of 
merely  animal  realism.  In  this  realism  there  is 
nothing  deserving  the  highest  effort  of  art  of  any 
sort. 

What  is  the  object  of  art?  Is  it  not,  or  should 
it  not  be,  to  make  us  imagine  better  conditions 
than  that  which  at  present  exist  in  the  world,  and 
by  so  imagining  to  prepare  the  way  for  the  coming 
of  such  conditions?  I  think  that  all  great  art  has 
done  this.  Do  you  remember  the  old  story  about 
Greek  mothers  keeping  in  their  rooms  the  statue 
of  a  god  or  a  man,  more  beautiful  than  anything 
real,  so  that  their  imagination  might  be  constantly 
influenced  by  the  sight  of  beauty,  and  that  they 
might  perhaps  be  able  to  bring  more  beautiful 
children  into  the  world?  Among  the  Arabs, 
mothers  also  do  something  of  this  kind,  only,  as 


22  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

they  have  no  art  of  imagery,  they  go  to  Nature 
herself  for  the  living  image.  Black  luminous  eyes 
are  beautiful,  and  wives  keep  in  their  tents  a  little 
deer,  the  gazelle,  which  is  famous  for  the  bril- 
liancy and  beauty  of  its  eyes.  By  constantly  look- 
ing at  this  charming  pet  the  Arab  wife  hopes  to 
bring  into  the  world  some  day  a  child  with  eyes 
as  beautiful  as  the  eyes  of  the  gazelle.  Well,  the 
highest  function  of  art  ought  to  do  for  us,  or  at 
least  for  the  world,  what  the  statue  and  the  ga- 
zelle were  expected  to  do  for  Grecian  and  Arab 
mothers — to  make  possible  higher  conditions  than 
the  existing  ones. 

So  much  being  said,  consider  again  the  place 
and  the  meaning  of  the  passion  of  love  in  any 
human  life.  It  is  essentially  a  period  of  idealism, 
of  imagining  better  things  and  conditions  than  are 
possible  in  this  world.  For  everybody  who  has 
been  in  love  has  imagined  something  higher  than 
the  possible  and  the  present.  Any  idealism  is  a 
proper  subject  for  art.  It  is  not  at  all  the  same 
in  the  case  of  realism.  Grant  that  all  this  passion, 
imagination,  and  fine  sentiment  is  based  upon  a 
very  simple  animal  impulse.  That  does  not  make 
the  least  difference  in  the  value  of  the  highest  re- 
sults of  that  passion.  We  might  say  the  very  same 
thing  about  any  human  emotion;  every  emotion 
can  be  evolutionally  traced  back  to  simple  and  self- 
ish impulses  shared  by  man  with  the  lower  ani- 
mals.    But  because  an  apple  tree  or  a  pear  tree 


LOVE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY        23 

happens  to  have  its  roots  in  the  ground,  does  that 
mean  that  its  fruits  are  not  beautiful  and  whole- 
some? Most  assuredly  we  must  not  judge  the 
fruit  of  the  tree  from  the  unseen  roots;  but  what 
about  turning  up  the  ground  to  look  at  the  roots? 
What  becomes  of  the  beauty  of  the  tree  when  you 
do  that?  The  realist — at  least  the  French  realist 
— likes  to  do  that.  He  likes  to  bring  back  the 
attention  of  his  reader  to  the  lowest  rather  than 
to  the  highest,  to  that  which  should  be  kept  hid- 
den, for  the  very  same  reason  that  the  roots  of 
a  tree  should  be  kept  underground  if  the  tree  is 
to  live. 

The  time  of  illusion,  then,  is  the  beautiful  mo- 
ment of  passion;  it  represents  the  artistic  zone  in 
which  the  poet  or  romance  writer  ought  to  be  free 
to  do  the  very  best  that  he  can.  He  may  go  be- 
yond that  zone;  but  then  he  has  only  two  direc- 
tions in  which  he  can  travel.  Above  it  there  is 
religion,  and  an  artist  may,  like  Dante,  succeed  in 
transforming  love  into  a  sentiment  of  religious 
ecstasy.  I  do  not  think  that  any  artist  could  do 
that  to-day;  this  is  not  an  age  of  religious  ecstasy. 
But  upwards  there  is  no  other  way  to  go.  Down- 
wards the  artist  may  travel  until  he  finds  himself 
in  hell.  Between  the  zone  of  idealism  and  the 
brutality  of  realism  there  are  no  doubt  many  gra- 
dations. I  am  only  indicating  what  I  think  to  be 
an  absolute  truth,  that  in  treating  of  love  the 
literary  master  should  keep  to  the  period  of  illu- 


24  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

sion,  and  that  to  go  below  it  is  a  dangerous  under- 
taking. And  now,  having  tried  to  make  what  are 
believed  to  be  proper  distinctions  between  great 
literature  on  this  subject  and  all  that  is  not  great, 
we  may  begin  to  study  a  few  examples.  I  am 
going  to  select  at  random  passages  from  English 
poets  and  others,  illustrating  my  meaning. 

Tennyson  is  perhaps  the  most  familiar  to  you 
among  poets  of  our  own  time ;  and  he  has  given  a 
few  exquisite  examples  of  the  ideal  sentiment  in 
passion.  One  is  a  concluding  verse  in  the  beau- 
tiful song  that  occurs  in  the  monodrama  of 
"Maud,"  where  the  lover,  listening  in  the  garden, 
hears  the  steps  of  his  beloved  approaching. 

She  is  coming,  my  own,  my  sweet, 

Were  it  ever  so  airy  a  tread, 
My  heart  would  hear  her  and  beat, 

Were  it  earth  in  an  earthy  bed; 
My  dust  would  hear  her  and  beat, 

Had  I  lain  for  a  century  dead ; 
Would  start  and  tremble  under  her  feet, 

And  blossom  in  purple  and  red. 

This  is  a  very  fine  instance  of  the  purely  ideal 
emotion — extravagant,  if  you  like,  in  the  force  of 
the  imagery  used,  but  absolutely  sincere  and  true; 
for  the  imagination  of  love  is  necessarily  extrava- 
gant. It  would  be  quite  useless  to  ask  whether 
the  sound  of  a  girl's  footsteps  could  really  waken 
a  dead  man;  we  know  that  love  can  fancy  such 
things  quite  naturally,  not  in  one  country  only  but 


LOVE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY        25 

everywhere.  An  Arabian  poem  written  long  be- 
fore the  time  of  Mohammed  contains  exactly  the 
same  thought  in  simpler  words;  and  1  think,  that 
there  are  some  old  Japanese  songs  containing 
something  similar.  All  that  the  statement  really 
means  is  that  the  voice,  the  look,  the  touch,  even 
the  footstep  of  the  woman  beloved  have  come  to 
possess  for  the  lover  a  significance  as  great  as  life 
and  death.  For  the  moment  he  knows  no  other 
divinity;  she  is  his  god,  in  the  sense  that  her 
power  over  him  has  become  infinite  and  ir- 
resistible. 

The  second  example  may  be  furnished  from 
another  part  of  the  same  composition — the  little 
song  of  exaltation  after  the  promise  to  marry  has 
been  given. 

0  let  the  solid  ground 
Not  fail  beneath  my  feet 

Before  my  life  has  found 

What  some  have  found  so  sweet; 
Then  let  come  what  come  may, 
What  matter  if  I  go  mad, 

1  shall  have  had  my  day. 

Let  the  sweet  heavens  endure, 
Not  close  and  darken  above  me 

Before  I  am  quite,  quite  sure 
That  there  is  one  to  love  me; 

Then  let  come  what  come  may 

To  a  life  that  has  been  so  sad, 

I  shall  have  had  my  day. 


26  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

The  feeling  of  the  lover  is  that  no  matter  what 
happens  afterwards,  the  winning  of  the  woman  is 
enough  to  pay  for  life,  death,  pain,  or  anything 
else.  One  of  the  most  remarkable  phenomena  of 
the  illusion  is  the  supreme  indifference  to  conse- 
quences— at  least  to  any  consequences  which 
would  not  signify  moral  shame  or  loss  of  honour. 
Of  course  the  poet  is  supposed  to  consider  the 
emotion  only  in  generous  natures.  But  the  sub- 
ject of  this  splendid  indifference  has  been  more 
wonderfully  treated  by  Victor  Hugo  than  by  Ten- 
nyson— as  we  shall  see  later  on,  when  considering 
another  phase  of  the  emotion.  Before  doing  that, 
I  want  to  call  your  attention  to  a  very  charming 
treatment  of  love's  romance  by  an  American.  It 
is  one  of  the  most  delicate  of  modern  composi- 
tions, and  it  is  likely  to  become  a  classic,  as  it  has 
already  been  printed  in  four  or  five  different  an- 
thologies.   The  title  is  "Atalanta's  Race." 

First  let  me  tell  you  the  story  of  Atalanta,  so 
that  you  will  be  better  able  to  see  the  fine  sym- 
bolism of  the  poem.  Atalanta,  the  daughter  of  a 
Greek  king,  was  not  only  the  most  beautiful  of 
maidens,  but  the  swiftest  runner  in  the  world.  She 
passed  her  time  in  hunting,  and  did  not  wish  to 
marry.  But  as  many  men  wanted  to  marry  her, 
a  law  was  passed  that  any  one  who  desired  to  win 
her  must  run  a  race  with  her.  If  he  could  beat 
her  in  running,  then  she  promised  to  marry  him, 
but  if  he  lost  the  race,  he  was  to  be  killed.    Some 


LOVE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY        27 

say  that  the  man  was  allowed  to  run  first,  and 
that  the  girl  followed  with  a  spear  in  her  hand 
and  killed  him  when  she  overtook  him.  There 
are  different  accounts  of  the  contest.  Many- 
suitors  lost  the  race  and  were  killed.  But  finally 
a  young  man  called  Hippomenes  obtained  from 
the  Goddess  of  Love  three  golden  apples,  and  he 
was  told  that  if  he  dropped  these  apples  while 
running,  the  girl  would  stop  to  pick  them  up,  and 
that  in  this  way  he  might  be  able  to  win  the  race. 
So  he  ran,  and  when  he  found  himself  about  to 
be  beaten,  he  dropped  one  apple.  She  stopped  to 
pick  it  up  and  thus  he  gained  a  little.  In  this  way 
he  won  the  race  and  married  Atalanta.  Greek 
mythology  says  that  afterwards  she  and  her  hus- 
band were  turned  into  lions  because  they  offended 
the  gods;  however,  that  need  not  concern  us  here. 
There  is  a  very  beautiful  moral  in  the  old  Greek 
story,  and  the  merit  of  the  American  composi- 
tion is  that  its  author,  Maurice  Thompson,  per- 
ceived this  moral  and  used  it  to  illustrate  a  great 
philosophical  truth. 

When  Spring  grows  old,  and  sleepy  winds 

Set  from  the  South  with  odours  sweet, 
I  see  my  love,  in  green,  cool  groves. 

Speed  down  dusk  aisles  on  shining  feet. 
She  throws  a  kiss  and  bids  me  run, 

In  whispers  sweet  as  roses'  breath; 
I   know   I   cannot  win  the   race, 

And  at  the  end,   I  know,  is  death. 


28  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

But  joyfully  I  bare  my  limbs, 

Anoint  me  with  the  tropic  breeze, 
And  feel  through  every  sinew  run 

The  vigour  of  Hippomenes. 

O  race  of  love!  we  all  have  run 
Thy  happy  course  through  groves  of  Spring, 

And  cared  not,  when  at  last  we  lost. 
For  life  or  death,  or  anything! 

There  are  a  few  thoughts  here  requiring  a  little 
comment.  You  know  that  the  Greek  games  and 
athletic  contests  were  held  in  the  fairest  season, 
and  that  the  contestants  were  stripped.  They 
were  also  anointed  with  oil,  partly  to  protect  the 
skin  against  sun  and  temperature  and  partly  to 
make  the  body  more  supple.  The  poet  speaks  of 
the  young  man  as  being  anointed  by  the  warm 
wind  of  Spring,  the  tropic  season  of  life.  It  Is 
a  very  pretty  fancy.  What  he  Is  really  telling  us 
is  this: 

"There  are  no  more  Greek  games,  but  the  race 
of  love  is  still  run  to-day  as  In  times  gone  by; 
youth  is  the  season,  and  the  atmosphere  of  youth 
is  the  anointing  of  the  contestant." 

But  the  moral  of  the  piece  Is  Its  great  charm, 
the  poetical  statement  of  a  beautiful  and  a  won- 
derful fact.  In  almost  every  life  there  is  a  time 
when  we  care  for  only  one  person,  and  suffer  much 
for  that  person's  sake;  yet  in  that  period  we  do 
not  care  whether  we  suffer  or  die,  and  in  after  life, 


LOVE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY        29 

when  we  look  back  at  those  hours  of  youth,  we 
wonder  at  the  way  In  which  we  then  felt.  In 
European  life  of  to-day  the  old  Greek  fable  is 
still  true;  almost  everybody  must  run  Atalanta's 
race  and  abide  by  the  result. 

One  of  the  delightful  phases  of  the  illusion  of 
love  is  the  sense  of  old  acquaintance,  the  feeling 
as  if  the  person  loved  had  been  known  and  loved 
long  ago  in  some  time  and  place  forgotten.  I 
think  you  must  have  observed,  many  of  you,  that 
when  the  senses  of  sight  and  hearing  happen  to 
be  strongly  stirred  by  some  new  and  most  pleasur- 
able experience,  the  feeling  of  novelty  is  absent, 
or  almost  absent.  You  do  not  feel  as  if  you  were 
seeing  or  hearing  something  new,  but  as  if  you 
saw  or  heard  something  that  you  knew  all  about 
very  long  ago.  I  remember  once  travelling  with  a 
Japanese  boy  into  a  charming  little  country  town 
in  Shikoku — and  scarcely  had  we  entered  the  main 
street,  than  he  cried  out:  "Oh,  I  have  seen  this 
place  before !"  Of  course  he  had  not  seen  it  be- 
fore; he  was  from  Osaka  and  had  never  left  the 
great  city  until  then.  But  the  pleasure  of  his  new 
experience  had  given  him  this  feeling  of  familiar- 
ity with  the  unfamiliar.  I  do  not  pretend  to  ex- 
plain this  familiarity  with  the  new — it  is  a  great 
mystery  still,  just  as  it  was  a  great  mystery  to  the 
Roman  Cicero.  But  almost  everybody  that  has 
been  in  love  has  probably  had  the  same  feeling 
during  a  moment  or  two — the   feeling  "I  have 


30  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

known  that  woman  before,"  though  the  where 
and  the  when  are  mysteries.  Some  of  the  modern 
poets  have  beautifully  treated  this  feeling.  The 
best  example  that  I  can  give  you  is  the  exquisite 
lyric  by  Rossetti  entitled  "Sudden  Light." 

I  have  been  here  before, 

But  when  or  how  I  cannot  tell: 
I  know  the  grass  beyond  the  door, 

The  sweet  keen  smell, 
The  sighing  sound,  the  lights  around  the  shore. 

You  have  been  mine  before, — 

How  long  ago  I  may  not  know: 
But  just  when  at  that  swallow's  soar 

Your  neck  turn'd  so. 
Some  veil  did  fall, — I  knew  it  all  of  yore. 

Has  this  been  thus  before? 

And  shall  not  thus  time's  eddying  flight 
Still  with  our  lives  our  loves  restore 

In  death's  despite. 
And  day  and  night  yield  one  delight  once  more? 

I  think  you  will  acknowledge  that  this  is  very 
pretty;  and  the  same  poet  has  treated  the  idea 
equally  well  in  other  poems  of  a  more  complicated 
kind.  But  another  poet  of  the  period  was  haunted 
even  more  than  Rossetti  by  this  idea — Arthur 
O'Shaughnessy.  Like  Rossetti  he  was  a  great 
lover,  and  very  unfortunate  in  his  love;  and  he 
wrote  his  poems,  now  famous,  out  of  the  pain  and 


LOVE  IN  EiNGLlSH  POETRY        31" 

regret  that  was  in  his  heart,  much  as  singing  birds 
born  in  cages  are  said  to  sing  better  when  their 
eyes  are  put  out.    Here  is  one  example: 

Along  the  garden  ways  just  now 

I  heard  the  flowers  speak; 
The  white  rose  told  me  of  your  brow, 

The  red  rose  of  your  cheek; 
The  lily  of  your  bended  head, 

The  bindweed  of  your  hair: 
Each  looked  its  loveliest  and  said 

You  were  more  fair. 

I  went  into  the  woods  anon, 

And  heard  the  wild  birds  sing 
How  sweet  you  were ;  they  warbled  on. 

Piped,  trill'd  the  self-same  thing. 
Thrush,  blackbird,  h'nnet,  without  pause 

The  burden  did  repeat. 
And   still   began   again    because 

You  were  more  sweet. 

And  then  I  went  down  to  the  sea. 

And  heard  it  murmuring  too, 
Part  of  an  ancient  mystery, 

AH  made  of  me  and  you : 
How  many  a  thousand  years  ago 

I  loved,  and  you  were  sweet — 
Longer  I  could  not  stay,  and  so 

I  fled  back  to  your  feet. 

The  last  stanza   especially  expresses   the   idea 
that  I  have  been  telling  you  about;  but  in  a  poem 


32  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

entitled  "Greater  Memory"  the  idea  is  much  more 
fully  expressed.  By  "greater  memory"  you  must 
understand  the  memory  beyond  this  life  into  past 
stages  of  existence.  This  piece  has  become  a  part 
of  the  nineteenth  century  poetry  that  will  live; 
and  a  few  of  the  best  stanzas  deserve  to  be  quoted. 

In  the  heart  there  lay  buried  for  years 
Love's  story  of  passion  and  tears; 
Of  the  heaven  that  two  had  begun 

And  the  horror  that  tore  them  apart; 
When  one  was  love's  slayer,*  but  one 

Made  a  grave  for  the  love  in  his  heart. 

The  long  years  pass'd  weary  and  lone 

And  it  lay  there  and  changed  there  unknown ; 

Then  one  day  from  its  innermost  place, 

In  the  shamed  and  ruin'd  love's  stead, 
Love  arose  with  a  glorified  face, 

Like  an  angel  that  comes  from  the  dead. 

It  uplifted  the  stone  that  was  set 

On  that  tomb  which  the  heart  held  yet; 

But  the  sorrow  had  moulder'd  within. 

And  there  came  from  the  long  closed  door 
A  dear  image,  that  was  not  the  sin 

Or  the  grief  that  lay  buried  before. 

There  was  never  the  stain  of  a  tear 
On  the  face  that  was  ever  so  dear; 
'Twas  the  same  in  each  lovelier  way; 

Twas  old  love's  holier  part. 
And  the  dream  of  the  earliest  day 

Brought  back  to  the  desolate  heart. 


LOVE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY        33 

It  was  knowledge  of  all  that  had  been 

In  the  thought,  in  the  soul  unseen ; 

'Twas  the  word  which  the  lips  could  not  say 

To  redeem  or  recover  the  past. 
It  was  more  than  was  taken  away 

Which  the  heart  got  back  at  the  last. 

The  passion  that  lost  its  spell, 
The  rose  that  died  where  it  fell, 
The  look  that  was  look'd  in  vain, 

The  prayer  that  seemed  lost  evermore, 
They  were  found  in  the  heart  again, 

With  all  that  the  heart  would  restore. 

Put  into  less  mystical  language  the  legend  is 
this:  A  young  man  and  a  young  woman  loved 
each  other  for  a  time;  then  they  were  separated 
by  some  great  wrong — we  may  suppose  the 
woman  was  untrue.  The  man  always  loved  her 
memory,  in  spite  of  this  wrong  which  she  had 
done.  The  two  died  and  were  buried;  hundreds 
and  hundreds  of  years  they  remained  buried,  and 
the  dust  of  them  mixed  with  the  dust  of  the  earth. 
But  in  the  perpetual  order  of  things,  a  pure  love 
never  can  die,  though  bodies  may  die  and  pass 
away.  So  after  many  generations  the  pure  love 
which  this  man  had  for  a  bad  woman  was  born 
again  in  the  heart  of  another  man — the  same,  yet 
not  the  same.  And  the  spirit  of  the  woman  that 
long  ago  had  done  the  wrong,  also  found  incar- 
nation again;  and  the  two  meeting,  are  drawn 
to  each  other  by  what  people  call  love,  but  what 


34  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

is  really  Greater  Memory,  the  recollection  of  past 
lives.  But  now  all  Is  happiness  for  them,  because 
the  weaker  and  worse  part  of  each  has  really  died 
and  has  been  left  hundreds  of  years  behind,  and 
only  the  higher  nature  has  been  born  again.  All 
that  ought  not  to  have  been  is  not;  but  all  that 
ought  to  be  now  is.  This  is  really  an  evolutionary 
teaching,  but  it  is  also  poetical  license,  for  the 
immoral  side  of  mankind  does  not  by  any  means 
die  so  quickly  as  the  poet  supposes.  It  is  perhaps 
a  question  of  many  tens  of  thousands  of  years  to 
get  rid  of  a  few  of  our  simpler  faults.  Anyway, 
the  fancy  charms  us  and  tempts  us  really  to  hope 
that  these  things  might  be  so. 

While  the  poets  of  our  time  so  extend  the  his- 
tory of  a  love  backwards  beyond  this  life,  we 
might  expect  them  to  do  the  very  same  thing  in 
the  other  direction.  I  do  not  refer  to  reunion  in 
heavdn,  or  anything  of  that  sort,  but  simply  to 
affection  continued  after  death.  There  are  some 
very  pretty  fancies  of  the  kind.  But  they  can  not 
prove  to  you  quite  so  Interesting  as  the  poems 
which  treat  the  recollection  of  past  life.  When 
we  consider  the  past  imaginatively,  we  have  some 
ground  to  stand  on.  The  past  has  been — there  is 
no  doubt  about  that.  The  fact  that  we  are  at  this 
moment  alive  makes  it  seem  sufficiently  true  that 
we  were  alive  thousands  or  millions  of  years  ago. 
But  when  we  turn  to  the  future  for  poetical  in- 
spiration, the  case  is  very  different.     There  we 


LOVE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY        ss 

must  imagine  without  having  anything  to  stand 
upon  in  the  way  of  experience.  Of  course  if  born 
again  into  a  body  we  could  imagine  many  things; 
but  there  is  the  ghostly  interval  between  death 
and  birth  which  nobody  is  able  to  tell  us  about. 
Here  the  poet  depends  upon  dream  experiences, 
and  it  is  of  such  an  experience  that  Christina  Ros- 
setti  speaks  in  her  beautiful  poem  entitled  "A 
Pause." 

They  made  the  chamber  sweet  with  flowers  and  leaves, 
And  the  bed  sweet  with  flowers  on  which  I  lay, 
While  my  soul,  love-bound,  loitered  on  its  way. 
I  did  not  hear  the  birds  about  the  eaves. 
Nor  hear  the  reapers  talk  among  the  sheaves: 
Only  my  soul  kept  watch  from  day  to  day, 

My  thirsty  soul  kept  watch  for  one  away : — 
Perhaps  he  loves,  I  thought,  remembers,  grieves. 

At  length  there  came  the  step  upon  the  stair. 

Upon  the  lock  the  old  familiar  hand : 
Then  first  my  spirit  seemed  to  scent  the  air 

Of  Paradise;  then  first  the  tardy  sand 
Of  time  ran  golden;  and  I  felt  my  hair 

Put  on  a  glory,  and  my  soul  expand. 

The  woman  is  dead.  In  the  room  where  her 
body  died,  flowers  have  been  placed,  offerings  to 
the  dead.  Also  there  are  flowers  upon  the  bed. 
The  ghost  of  the  woman  observes  all  this,  but 
she  does  not  feel  either  glad  or  sad  because  of  it; 
she  is  thinking  only  of  the  living  lover,  who  was 


36  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

not  there  when  she  died,  but  far  away.  She  wants 
to  know  whether  he  really  loved  her,  whether  he 
will  really  be  sorry  to  hear  that  she  is  dead.  Out- 
side the  room  of  death  the  birds  are  singing;  in 
the  fields  beyond  the  windows  peasants  are  work- 
ing, and  talking  as  they  work.  But  the  ghost  does 
not  listen  to  these  sounds.  The  ghost  remains  in 
the  room  only  for  love's  sake;  she  can  not  go  away 
until  the  lover  comes.  At  last  she  hears  him  com- 
ing. She  knows  the  sound  of  the  step;  she  knows 
the  touch  of  the  hand  upon  the  lock  of  the  door. 
And  instantly,  before  she  sees  him  at  all,  she  first 
feels  delight.  Already  it  seems  to  her  that  she 
can  smell  the  perfume  of  the  flowers  of  heaven; 
it  then  seems  to  her  that  about  her  head,  as  about 
the  head  of  an  angel,  a  circle  of  glory  is  shaping 
itself,  and  the  real  heaven,  the  Heaven  of  Love, 
is  at  hand. 

How  very  beautiful  this  is.  There  is  still  one 
line  which  requires  a  separate  explanation — I 
mean  the  sentence  about  the  sands  of  time  run- 
ning golden.  Perhaps  you  may  remember  the 
same  simile  in  Tennyson's  "Locksley  Hall" : 

Love  took  up  the  glass  of  Time,  and  turn'd  it  in  his 

glowing  hands ; 
Every  moment,  lightly  shaken,  ran  itself  in  golden  sands. 

Here  time  is  identified  with  the  sand  of  the  hour 
glass,  and  the  verb  "to  run"  is  used  because  this 
verb  commonly  expresses  the  trickling  of  the  sand 


LOVE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY        37 

from  the  upper  part  of  the  glass  into  the  lower. 
In  other  words,  fine  sand  ''runs"  just  like  water. 
To  say  that  the  sands  of  time  run  golden,  or 
become  changed  into  gold,  is  only  a  poetical  way 
of  stating  that  the  time  becomes  more  than  happy 
— almost  heavenly  or  divine.  And  now  you  will 
see  how  very  beautiful  the  comparison  becomes  in 
this  little  poem  about  the  ghost  of  the  woman 
waiting  for  the  coming  step  of  her  lover. 

Several  other  aspects  of  the  emotion  may  now 
be  considered  separately.  One  of  these,  an  espe- 
cially beautiful  one,  is  memory.  Of  course,  there 
are  many  aspects  of  love's  memories,  some  all 
happiness,  others  intensely  sorrowful — the  mem- 
ory of  a  walk,  a  meeting,  a  moment  of  good-bye. 
Such  memories  occupy  a  very  large  place  in  the 
treasure  house  of  English  love  poems.  I  am  going 
to  give  three  examples  only,  but  each  of  a  dif- 
ferent kind.  The  first  poet  that  I  am  going  to 
mention  is  Coventry  Patmore.  He  wrote  two  cu- 
rious books  of  poetry,  respectively  called  "The 
Angel  in  the  House"  and  "The  Unknown  Eros." 
In  the  first  of  these  books  he  wrote  the  whole 
history  of  his  courtship  and  marriage — a  very 
dangerous  thing  for  a  poet  to  do,  but  he  did  it 
successfully.  The  second  volume  is  miscellaneous, 
and  contains  some  very  beautiful  things.  I  am 
going  to  quote  only  a  few  lines  from  the  piece 
called  "Amelia."  This  piece  is  the  story  of  an 
evening  spent  with  a  sweetheart,   and  the  lines 


38  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

which  I  am  quoting  refer  to  the  moment  of  taking 
the  girl  home.    They  are  now  rather  famous: 

.    .    .   To  the  dim  street 
I  led  her  sacred  feet ; 
And  so  the  Daughter  gave, 
Soft,  moth-like,  sweet. 
Showy  as  damask-rose  and  shy  as  musk. 
Back  to  her  Mother,  anxious  in  the  dusk. 
And  now  "Good  Night!" 

Why  should  the  poet  speak  of  the  girl  in  this 
way?  Why  does  he  call  her  feet  sacred?  She  has 
just  promised  to  marry  him;  and  now  she  seems 
to  him  quite  divine.  But  he  discovers  very  plain 
words  with  which  to  communicate  his  finer  feel- 
ings to  the  reader.  The  street  is  "dim"  because 
it  is  night;  and  in  the  night  the  beautifully  dressed 
maiden  seems  like  a  splendid  moth — the  name 
given  to  night  butterflies  in  England.  In  England 
the  moths  are  much  more  beautiful  than  the  true 
butterflies;  they  have  wings  of  scarlet  and  purple 
and  brown  and  gold.  So  the  comparison,  though 
peculiarly  English,  is  very  fine.  Also  there  is  a 
suggestion  of  the  soundlessness  of  the  moth's 
flight.  Now  "showy  as  damask  rose"  is  a  striking 
simile  only  because  the  damask-rose  is  a  wonder- 
fully splendid  flower — richest  in  colour  of  all  roses 
in  English  gardens.  "Shy  as  musk"  is  rather  a 
daring  simile.  "Musk"  is  a  perfume  used  by 
English  as  well  as  Japanese  ladies,  but  there  is  no 


LOVE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY        39 

perfume  which  must  be  used  with  more  discretion, 
carefulness.  If  you  use  ever  so  little  too  much, 
the  effect  is  not  pleasant.  But  if  you  use  exactly 
the  proper  quantity,  and  no  more,  there  is  no  per- 
fume which  is  more  lovely.  "Shy  as  musk"  thus 
refers  to  that  kind  of  girlish  modesty  which  never 
commits  a  fault  even  by  the  measure  of  a  grain — 
a  beautiful  shyness  incapable  of  being  anything 
but  beautiful.  Nevertheless  the  comparison  must 
be  confessed  one  which  should  be  felt  rather  than 
explained. 

The  second  of  the  three  promised  quotations 
shall  be  from  Robert  Browning.  There  Is  one 
feeling,  not  often  touched  upon  by  poets,  yet  pe- 
culiar to  lovers,  that  is  here  treated — the  desire 
when  you  are  very  happy  or  when  you  are  looking 
at  anything  attractive  to  share  the  pleasure  of  the 
moment  with  the  beloved.  But  It  seldom  happens 
that  the  wish  and  the  conditions  really  meet.  Re- 
ferring to  this  longing  Browning  made  a  short 
lyric  that  is  now  a  classic;  It  Is  among  the  most 
dainty  things  of  the  century. 

Never  the  time  and  the  place 

And  the  loved  one  all  together! 
This  path — how  soft  to  pace! 

This  May — what  magic  weather! 
Where  is  the  loved  one's  face? 
In  a  dream  that  loved  one's  face  meets  mine, 
But  the  house  is  narrow,  the  place  is  bleak 
Where,  outside,  rain  and  wind  combine 


40  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

With  a  furtive  ear,  if  I  try  to  speak, 

With  a  hostile  eye  at  my  flushing  cheek, 

With  a  malice  that  marks  each  word,  each  sign ! 

Never  can  we  have  things  the  way  we  wish  in 
this  world — a  beautiful  day,  a  beautiful  place,  and 
the  presence  of  the  beloved  all  at  the  same  time. 
Something  is  always  missing;  if  the  place  be  beau- 
tiful, the  weather  perhaps  is  bad.  Or  if  the 
weather  and  the  place  both  happen  to  be  perfect, 
the  woman  is  absent.  So  the  poet  finding  himself 
in  some  very  beautiful  place,  and  remembering 
this,  remembers  also  the  last  time  that  he  met 
the  woman  beloved.  It  was  a  small  dark  house 
and  chilly;  outside  there  was  rain  and  storm;  and 
the  sounds  of  the  wind  and  of  the  rain  were  as 
the  sounds  of  people  secretly  listening,  or  sounds 
of  people  trying  to  look  in  secretly  through  the 
windows.  Evidently  it  was  necessary  that  the 
meeting  should  be  secret,  and  it  was  not  altogether 
as  happy  as  could  have  been  wished. 

The  third  example  is  a  very  beautiful  poem;  we 
must  content  ourselves  with  an  extract  from  it. 
It  Is  the  memory  of  a  betrothal  day,  and  the  poet 
is  Frederick  Tennyson.  I  suppose  you  know  that 
there  were  three  Tennysons,  and  although  Alfred 
happened  to  be  the  greatest,  all  of  them  were 
good  poets. 

It  is  a  golden  morning  of  the  spring. 

My  cheek  is  pale,  and  hers  is  warm  with  bloom, 


LOVE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY        41 

And  we  are  left  in  that  old  carven  room, 
And  she  begins  to  sing; 

The  open  casement  quivers  in  the  breeze, 

And  one  large  musk-rose  leans  its  dewy  grace 
Into  the  chamber,  like  a  happy  face. 

And  round  it  swim  the  bees; 

I  know  not  what  I  said — what  she  replied 
Lives,  like  eternal  sunshine,  in  my  heart; 
And  then  I  murmured,  Oh!  we  never  part, 

My  love,  my  life,  my  bride! 

And  silence  o'er  us,  after  that  great  bliss, 
Fell  like  a  welcome  shadow — and  I  heard 
The  far  woods  sighing,  and  a  summer  bird 

Singing  amid  the  trees; 

The  sweet  bird's  happy  song,  that  streamed  around, 
The  murmur  of  the  woods,  the  azure  skies. 
Were  graven  on  my  heart,  though  ears  and  eyes 

Marked  neither  sight  nor  sound. 

She  sleeps  in  peace  beneath  the  chancel  stone, 
But  ah!  so  clearly  is  the  vision  seen, 
The  dead  seem  raised,  or  Death  has  never  been, 

Were  I  not  here  alone. 

This  Is  great  art  In  Its  power  of  picturing  a 
memory  of  the  heart.  Let  us  notice  some  of  the 
beauties.  The  lover  Is  pale  because  he  Is  afraid, 
anxious;  he  Is  going  to  ask  a  question  and  he  does 
not  know  how  she  may  answer  him.    All  this  was 


42  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

long  ago,  years  and  years  ago,  but  the  strong 
emotions  of  that  morning  leave  their  every  detail 
painted  in  remembrance,  with  strange  vividness. 
After  all  those  years  the  man  still  recollects  the 
appearance  of  the  room,  the  sunshine  entering, 
and  the  crimson  rose  looking  into  the  room  from 
the  garden,  with  bees  humming  round  it.  Then 
after  the  question  had  been  asked  and  happily 
answered,  neither  could  speak  for  joy;  and  be- 
cause of  the  silence  all  the  sounds  of  nature  out- 
side became  almost  painfully  distinct.  Now  he 
remembers  how  he  heard  in  that  room  the  sound 
of  the  wind  in  far-away  trees,  the  singing  of  a 
bird — he  also  remembers  all  the  colours  and  the 
lights  of  the  day.  But  it  was  very,  very  long  ago, 
and  she  is  dead.  Still,  the  memory  is  so  clear  and 
bright  in  his  heart  that  it  is  as  if  time  had  stood 
still,  or  as  if  she  had  come  back  from  the  grave. 
Only  one  thing  assures  him  that  it  is  but  a  memory 
— he  is  alone. 

Returning  now  to  the  subject  of  love's  illusion 
in  itself,  let  me  remind  you  that  the  illusion  does 
not  always  pass  away — not  at  all.  It  passes  away 
in  every  case  of  happy  union,  when  it  has  become 
no  longer  necessary  to  the  great  purposes  of  na- 
ture. But  in  case  of  disappointment,  loss,  failure 
to  win  the  maiden  desired,  it  often  happens  that 
the  ideal  image  never  fades  away,  but  persistently 
haunts  the  mind  through  life,  and  is  capable  thus 
of  making  even  the  most  successful  life  unhappy. 


LOVE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY        43 

Sometimes  the  result  of  such  disappointment  may 
be  to  change  all  a  man's  ideas  about  the  world, 
about  life,  about  religion;  and  everything  remains 
darkened  for  him.  Many  a  young  person  disap- 
pointed in  love  begins  to  lose  religious  feeling 
from  that  moment,  for  it  seems  to  him,  simply 
because  he  happens  to  be  unfortunate,  that  the 
universe  is  all  wrong.  On  the  other  hand  the  suc- 
cessful lover  thinks  that  the  universe  is  all  right; 
he  utters  his  thanks  to  the  gods,  and  feels  his  faith 
in  religion  and  human  nature  greater  than  before. 
I  do  not  at  this  moment  remember  any  striking 
English  poem  illustrating  this  fact;  but  there  is  a 
pretty  little  poem  in  French  by  Victor  Hugo  show- 
ing well  the  relation  between  successful  love  and 
religious  feeling  in  simple  minds.  Here  is  an 
English  translation  of  it.  The  subject  Is  simply  a 
walk  at  night,  the  girl-bride  leaning  upon  the  arm 
of  her  husband;  and  his  memory  of  the  evening 
is  thus  expressed: 

The  trembling  arm  I  pressed 
Fondly;  our  thoughts  confessed 

Love's  conquest  tender; 
God  filled  the  vast  sweet  night, 
Love  filled  our  hearts;  the  light 

Of  stars  made  splendour. 

Even  as  we  walked  and  dreamed, 
'Twixt  heaven  and  earth,  it  seemed 
Our  souls  were  speaking; 


44  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

The  stars  looked  on  thy  face; 
Thine  eyes  through  violet  space 
The  stars  were  seeking. 

And  from  the  astral  light 
Feeling  the  soft  sweet  night 

Thrill  to  thy  soul, 
Thou  saidst:  "O  God  of  Bliss, 
Lord  of  the  Blue  Abyss, 

Thou  madest  the  whole !  " 

And  the  stars  whispered  low 
To  the  God  of  Space,  "  We  know, 

God  of  Eternity, 
Dear  Lord,  all  Love  is  Thine, 
Even  by  Love's  Light  we  shine ! 

Thou  madest  Beauty !  " 

Of  course  here  the  religious  feeling  itself  is  part 
of  the  illusion,  but  it  serves  to  give  great  depth 
and  beauty  to  simple  feeling.  Besides,  the  poem 
illustrates  one  truth  very  forcibly — namely,  that 
when  we  are  perfectly  happy  all  the  universe  ap- 
pears to  be  divine  and  divinely  beautiful;  in  other 
words,  we  are  in  heaven.  On  the  contrary,  when 
we  are  very  unhappy  the  universe  appears  to  be 
a  kind  of  hell,  in  which  there  is  no  hope,  no  joy, 
and  no  gods  to  pray  to. 

But  the  special  reason  I  wished  to  call  attention 
to  Victor  Hugo's  lyric  is  that  it  has  that  particular 
quality  called  by  philosophical  critics  "cosmic  emo- 
tion."   Cosmic  emotion  means  the  highest  quality 


LOVE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY        45 

of  human  emotion.  The  word  "cosmos"  signifies 
the  universe — not  simply  this  world,  but  all  the 
hundred  millions  of  suns  and  worlds  in  the  known 
heaven.  And  the  adjective  "cosmic"  means,  of 
course,  "related  to  the  whole  universe."  Ordi- 
nary emotion  may  be  more  than  individual  in  its 
relations.  I  mean  that  your  feelings  may  be 
moved  by  the  thought  or  the  perception  of  some- 
thing relating  not  only  to  your  own  life  but  also 
to  the  lives  of  many  others.  The  largest  form 
of  such  ordinary  emotion  is  what  would  be  called 
national  feeling,  the  feeling  of  your  own  relation 
to  the  whole  nation  or  the  whole  race.  But  there 
is  higher  emotion  even  than  that.  When  you 
think  of  yourself  emotionally  not  only  in  relation 
to  your  own  country,  your  own  nation,  but  in  re- 
lation to  all  humanity,  then  you  have  a  cosmic 
emotion  of  the  third  or  second  order.  I  say  "third 
or  second,"  because  whether  the  emotion  be  sec- 
ond or  third  rate  depends  very  much  upon  your 
conception  of  humanity  as  One.  But  if  you  think 
of  yourself  in  relation  not  to  this  world  only  but 
to  the  whole  universe  of  hundreds  of  millions  of 
stars  and  planets — in  relation  to  the  whole  mys- 
tery of  existence — then  you  have  a  cosmic  emotion 
of  the  highest  order.  Of  course  there  are  degrees 
even  in  this;  the  philosopher  or  the  metaphysician 
will  probably  have  a  finer  quality  of  cosmic  emo- 
tion than  the  poet  or  the  artist  is  able  to  have. 
>But  lovers  very  often,  according  to  their  degree 


46  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

of  intellectual  culture,  experience  a  kind  of  cosmic 
emotion;  and  Victor  Hugo's  little  poem  illustrates 
this.  Night  and  the  stars  and  the  abyss  of  the  sky 
all  seem  to  be  thrilling  with  love  and  beauty  to 
the  lover's  eyes,  because  he  himself  is  in  a  state 
of  loving  happiness;  and  then  he  begins  to  think 
about  his  relation  to  the  universal  life,  to  the  su- 
preme mystery  beyond  all  Form  and  Name. 

A  third  or  fourth  class  of  such  emotion  may  be 
illustrated  by  the  beautiful  sonnet  of  Keats,  writ- 
ten not  long  before  his  death.  Only  a  very  young 
man  could  have  written  this,  because  only  a  very 
young  man  loves  in  this  way — but  how  delightful 
it  is  I     It  has  no  title. 

Bright  star!  would  I  were  steadfast  as  thou  art — 

Not  in  lone  splendour  hung  aloft  the  night 
And  watching,  with  eternal  lids  apart, 

Like  nature's  patient,  sleepless  Eremite, 
The  moving  waters  at  their  priest-like  task 

Of  pure  ablution  round  earth's  human  shores, 
Or  gazing  on  new  soft-fallen  mask 

Of  snow  upon  the  mountains  and  the  moors — 

No — yet  still  steadfast,   still  unchangeable, 
Pillow'd  upon  my  fair  love's  ripening  breast, 

To  feel  forever  its  soft  fall  and  swell. 
Awake  forever  in  a  sweet  unrest, 

Still,  still  to  hear  her  tender-taken  breath. 

And  so  live  ever — or  else  swoon  to  death. 

Tennyson  has  charmingly  represented  a  lover 


LOVE  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY        47 

wishing  that  he  were  a  necklace  of  his  beloved,  or 
her  girdle,  or  her  earring;  but  that  is  not  a  cosmic 
emotion  at  all.  Indeed,  the  idea  of  Tennyson's 
pretty  song  was  taken  from  old  French  and  Eng- 
lish love  songs  of  the  peasants — popular  ballads. 
But  in  this  beautiful  sonnet  of  Keats,  where  the 
lover  wishes  to  be  endowed  with  the  immortality 
and  likeness  of  a  star  only  to  be  forever  with  the 
beloved,  there  is  something  of  the  old  Greek 
thought  which  inspired  the  beautiful  lines  written 
between  two  and  three  thousand  years  ago,  and 
translated  by  J.  A.  Symonds: 

Gazing  on  stars,  my  Star  ?  Would  that  I  were  the  welkin, 
Starry  with  myriad  eyes,  ever  to  gave  upon  thee! 

But  there  is  more  than  the  Greek  beauty  of 
thought  in  Keats's  sonnet,  for  we  find  the  poet 
speaking  of  the  exterior  universe  in  the  largest 
relation,  thinking  of  the  stars  watching  forever 
the  rising  and  the  falling  of  the  sea  tides,  thinking 
of  the  sea  tides  themselves  as  continually  purify- 
ing the  world,  even  as  a  priest  purifies  a  temple. 
The  fancy  of  the  boy  expands  to  the  fancy  of 
philosophy;  it  is  a  blending  of  poetry,  philosophy, 
and  sincere  emotion. 

You  will  have  seen  by  the  examples  which  we 
have  been  reading  together  that  English  love 
poetry,  like  Japanese  love  poetry,  may  be  divided 
into  many  branches  and  classified  according  to  the 
range  of  subject  from  the  very  simplest  utterance 


48  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

of  feeling  up  to  that  highest  class  expressing  cos- 
mic emotion.  Very  rich  the  subject  is ;  the  student 
is  only  puzzled  where  to  choose.  I  should  again 
suggest  to  you  to  observe  the  value  of  the  theme 
of  illusion,  especially  as  illustrated  in  our  ex- 
amples. There  are  indeed  multitudes  of  Western 
love  poems  that  would  probably  appear  to  you 
very  strange,  perhaps  very  foolish.  But  you  will 
certainly  acknowledge  that  there  are  some  varie- 
ties of  English  love  poetry  which  are  neither 
strange  nor  foolish,  and  which  are  well  worth 
studying,  not  only  in  themselves  but  in  their  rela- 
tion to  the  higher  forms  of  emotional  expression 
in  all  literature.  Out  of  love  poetry  belonging  to 
the  highest  class,  much  can  be  drawn  that  would 
serve  to  enrich  and  to  give  a  new  colour  to  your 
own  literature  of  emotion. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE   IDEAL  WOMAN   IN   ENGLISH   POETRY 

As  I  gave  already  in  this  class  a  lecture  on  the 
subject  of  love  poetry,  you  will  easily  understand 
that  the  subject  of  the  present  lecture  is  not  ex- 
actly love.  It  is  rather  about  love's  imagining  of 
perfect  character  and  perfect  beauty.  The  part 
of  it  to  which  I  think  your  attention  could  be  de- 
servedly given  is  that  relating  to  the  imagined 
wife  of  the  future,  for  this  is  a  subject  little 
treated  of  in  Eastern  poetry.  It  is  a  very  pretty 
subject.  But  in  Japan  and  other  countries  of  the 
East  almost  every  young  man  knows  beforehand 
whom  he  is  likely  to  marry.  Marriage  is  ar- 
ranged by  the  family:  it  is  a  family  matter,  indeed 
a  family  duty  and  not  a  romantic  pursuit.  At  one 
time,  very  long  ago,  in  Europe,  marriages  were  ar- 
ranged in  much  the  same  way.  But  nowadays  it 
may  be  said  in  general  that  no  young  man  in  Eng- 
land or  America  can  even  imagine  whom  he  will 
marry.  He  has  to  find  his  wife  for  himself;  and 
he  has  nobody  to  help  him;  and  if  he  makes  a 
mistake,  so  much  the  worse  for  him.  So  to  West- 
ern imagination  the  wife  of  the  future  is  a  mys- 

49 


so  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

tery,  a  romance,  an  anxiety — something  to  3ream 
about  and  to  write  poetry  about. 

This  little  book  that  I  hold  in  my  hand  is  now 
very  rare.  It  is  out  of  print,  but  it  is  worth  men- 
tioning to  you  because  it  is  the  composition  of  an 
exquisite  man  of  letters,  Frederick  Locker-Lamp^ 
son,  best  of  all  nineteenth  century  writers  of  so- 
ciety verse.  It  is  called  "Patchwork."  Many 
years  ago  the  author  kept  a  kind  of  journal  in 
which  he  wrote  down  or  copied  all  the  most  beau- 
tiful or  most  curious  things  which  he  had  heard 
or  which  he  had  found  in  books.  Only  the  best 
things  remained,  so  the  value  of  the  book  is  his 
taste  in  selection.  Whatever  Locker-Lampson 
pronounced  good,  the  world  now  knows  to  have 
been  exactly  what  he  pronounced,  for  his  taste 
was  very  fine.  And  in  this  book  I  find  a  little 
poem  quoted  from  Mr.  Edwin  Arnold,  now  Sir 
Edwin.  Sir  Edwin  Arnold  is  now  old  and  blind, 
and  he  has  not  been  thought  of  kindly  enough  in 
Japan,  because  his  work  has  not  been  sufficiently 
known.  Some  people  have  even  said  his  writings 
did  harm  to  Japan,  but  I  want  to  assure  you  that 
such  statements  are  stupid  lies.  On  the  contrary 
he  did  for  Japan  whatever  good  the  best  of  his 
talent  as  a  poet  and  the  best  of  his  influence  as 
a  great  journalist  could  enable  him  to  do.  But 
to  come  back  to  our  subject:  when  Sir  Edwin  was 
a  young  student  he  had  his  dreams  about  marriage 
like  other  young  English  students,  and  he  put  one 


THE  IDEAL  WOMAN  51; 

of  them  into  verse,  and  that  verse  was  at  once 
picked  out  by  Frederick  Locker-Lampson  for  his 
little  book  of  gems.  Half  a  century  has  passed 
since  then;  but  Locker-Lampson's  judgment  re- 
mains good,  and  1  am  going  to  put  this  little  poem 
first  because  it  so  well  illustrates  the  subject  of  the 
lecture.    It  is  entitled  "A  Ma  Future." 

Where  waitest  thou, 

Lady,  I  am  to  love?    Thou  comest  not, 
Thou  knowest  of  my  sad  and  lonely  lot — 

I  looked  for  thee  ere  now! 

It  is  the  May, 
And  each  sweet  sister  soul  hath  found  its  brother, 
Only  we  two  seek  fondly  each  the  other, 

And  seeking  still  delay. 

Where  art  thou,  sweet? 

I  long  for  thee  as  thirsty  lips  for  streams, 
O  gentle  promised  angel  of  my  dreams, 

Why  do  we  never  meet? 

Thou  art  as  I, 

Thy  soul  doth  wait  for  mine  as  mine  for  thee; 

We  cannot  live  apart,  must  meeting  be 
Never  before  we  die? 

Dear  Soul,  not  so. 

For  time  doth  keep  for  us  some  happy  years, 
And  God  hath  portioned  us  our  smiles  and  tears, 

Thou  knowest,  and  I  know. 


52  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

Therefore  I  bear 

This  winter-tide  as  bravely  as  I  may, 
Patiently  waiting  for  the  bright  spring  day 

That  Cometh  with  thee,  Dear. 

'Tis  the  May  light 

That  crimsons  all  the  quiet  college  gloom. 
May  it  shine  softly  in  thy  sleeping  room, 

And  so,  dear  wife,  good  night! 

This  is,  of  course,  addressed  to  the  spirit  of  the 
unknown  future  wife.  It  is  pretty,  though  it  is 
only  the  work  of  a  young  student.  But  some  one 
hundred  years  before,  another  student — a  very 
great  student,  Richard  Crashaw, — had  a  fancy  of 
the  same  kind,  and  made  verses  about  it  which  are 
famous.  You  will  find  parts  of  his  poem  about 
the  imaginary  wife  in  the  ordinary  anthologies, 
but  not  all  of  it,  for  it  is  very  long.  I  will  quote 
those  verses  which  seem  to  me  the  best. 

WISHES 

Whoe'er  she  be. 

That  not  impossible  She, 

That  shall  command  my  heart  and  me ; 

Where'er  she  lie, 

Locked   up   from   mortal   eye, 

In  shady  leaves  of  Destiny; 

Till  that  ripe  birth 

Of  studied  Fate  stand  forth, 

And  teach  her  fair  steps  to  our  earth; 


THE  IDEAL  WOMAN  53 

Till  that  divine 

Idea  take  a  shrine 

Of  crystal  flesh,  through  which  to  shine ; 

Meet  you  her,   my  wishes, 

Bespeak  her  to  my  blisses, 

And  be  ye  called  my  absent  kisses. 

The  poet  is  supposing  that  the  girl  whom  he  is 
to  marry  may  not  as  yet  even  have  been  born,  for 
though  men  in  the  world  of  scholarship  can  marry 
only  late  in  life,  the  wife  is  generally  quite  young. 
Marriage  is  far  away  in  the  future  for  the  stu- 
dent, therefore  these  fancies.  What  he  means  to 
say  in  short  is  about  like  this : 

"Oh,  my  wishes,  go  out  of  my  heart  and  look 
for  the  being  whom  I  am  destined  to  marry — find 
the  soul  of  her,  whether  born  or  yet  unborn,  and 
tell  that  soul  of  the  love  that  is  waiting  for  it." 
Then  he  tries  to  describe  the  imagined  woman  he 
hopes  to  find : 

I  wish  her  beauty 

That  owes  not  all  its  duty 

To  gaudy  'tire  or  glist'ring  shoe-tie. 

Something  more  than 
Taffeta  or  tissue  can; 
Or  rampant  feather,  or  rich  fan. 

More  than  the  spoil 

Of  shop  or  silk  worm's  toil, 

Or  a  bought  blush,  or  a  set  smile. 


54  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

A  face  that's  best 

By  its  own  beauty  drest 

And  can   alone  command   the  rest. 

A  face  made  up 

Out  of  no  other  shop 

Than  what  nature's  white  hand  sets  ope. 

A  cheek  where  grows 
More  than  a  morning  rose 
Which  to  no  box  his  being  owes. 

Eyes  that  displace 

The  neighbor  diamond  and  outface 

That  sunshine  by  their  own  sweet  grace. 

Tresses  that  wear 

Jewels,  but  to  declare 

How  much  themselves  more  precious  are. 

Smiles,  that  can  warm 

The  blood,  yet  teach  a  charm 

That  chastity  shall  take  no  harm. 

Life,  that  dares  send 

A  challenge  to  his  end, 

And  when  it  comes,  say  "Welcome,  friend!" 

There  is  much  more,  but  the  best  of  the 
thoughts  are  here.  They  are  not  exactly  new 
thoughts,  nor  strange  thoughts,  but  they  are  finely 
expressed  in  a  strong  and  simple  way. 

There  is  another  composition  on  the  same  sub- 


THE  IDEAL  WOMAN  .  55 

ject — the  imaginary  spouse,  the  destined  one. 
But  this  is  written  by  a  woman,  Christina  Ros- 
setti. 

SOMEWHERE  OR  OTHER 

Somewhere  or  other  there  must  surely  be 
The  face  not  seen,  the  voice  not  heard, 

The  heart  that  not  yet — never  yet — ah  me ! 
Made  answer  to  my  word. 

Somewhere  or  other,  may  be  near  or  far; 

Past  land  and  sea,  clean  out  of  sight ; 
Beyond  the  wondering  moon,  beyond  the  star 

That  tracks  her  night  by  night. 

Somev^^here  or  other,  may  be  far  or  near; 

With  just  a  wall,  a  hedge  between; 
With  just  the  last  leaves  of  the  dying  year, 

Fallen  on  a  turf  grown  green. 

And  that  turf  means  of  course  the  turf  of  a 
grave  in  the  churchyard.  This  poem  expresses 
fear  that  the  destined  one  never  can  be  met,  be- 
cause death  may  come  before  the  meeting  time. 
All  through  the  poem  there  is  the  suggestion  of 
an  old  belief  that- for  every  man  and  for  every 
woman  there  must  be  a  mate,  yet  that  it  is  a  chance 
whether  the  mate  will  ever  be  found. 

You  observe  that  all  of  these  are  ghostly 
poems,  whether  prospective  or  retrospective. 
Here  is  another  prospective  poem: 


56  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

AMATURUS 

Somewhere   beneath   the   sun, 

These  quivering  heart-strings  prove  it, 
Somewhere  there  must  be  one 

Made  for  this  soul,  to  move  it; 
Someone  that  hides  her  sweetness 

From  neighbors  whom  she  slights, 
Nor  can  attain  completeness, 

Nor  give  her  heart  its  rights; 
Someone  whom  I  could  court 

With  no  great  change  of  manner, 
Still  holding  reason's  fort 

Though  waving  fancy's  banner; 
A  lady,  not  so  queenly 

As  to  disdain  my  hand. 
Yet  born  to  smile  serenely 

Like  those  that  rule  the  land ; 
Noble,  but  not  too  proud ; 

With  soft  hair  simply  folded. 
And   bright  face   crescent-browed 

And  throat  by  Muses  moulded; 


Keen  lips,  that  shape  soft  sayings 

Like    crystals   of    the   snow. 
With  pretty  half-betrayings 

Of  things  one  may  not  know; 
Fair  hand,  whose  touches  thrill, 

Like  golden  rod  of  wonder. 
Which   Hermes  wields  at  will 

Spirit  and  flesh  to  sunder. 


THE  IDEAL  WOMAN  57 

Forth,  Love,  and  find  this  maid. 

Wherever  she  be  hidden; 
Speak,  Love,  be  not  afraid. 

But  plead   as   thou   art   bidden; 
And  say,   that  he  who  taught  thee 

His  yearning  want  and  pain. 
Too  dearly  dearly  bought  thee 

To  part  with  thee  in  vain. 

These  lines  are  by  the  author  of  that  exquisite 
little  book  "lonica" — a  book  about  which  I  hope 
to  talk  to  you  in  another  lecture.  His  real  name 
was  William  Cory,  and  he  was  long  the  head- 
master of  an  English  public  school,  during  which 
time  he  composed  and  published  anonymously  the 
charming  verses  whicli  have  made  him  famous — 
modelling  his  best  work  in  close  imitation  of  the 
Greek  poets.  A  few  expressions  in  these  lines 
need  explanation.  For  instance,  the  allusion  to 
Hermes  and  his  rod.  I  think  you  know  that 
Llermes  is  the  Greek  name  of  the  same  god  whom 
the  Romans  called  Mercury, — commonly  repre- 
sented as  a  beautiful  young  man,  naked  and  run- 
ning quickly,  having  wings  attached  to  the  sandals 
upon  his  feet.  Runners  used  to  pray  to  him  for 
skill  in  winning  foot  races.  But  this  god  had  many 
forms  and  many  attributes,  and  one  of  his  sup- 
posed duties  was  to  bring  the  souls  of  the  dead 
into  the  presence  of  the  king  of  Hades.  So  you 
will  see  some  pictures  of  him  standing  before  the 
throne  of  the  king  of  the  Dead,  and  behind  him 


58  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

a  long  procession  of  shuddering  ghosts.  H6  Is 
nearly  always  pictured  as  holding  in  his  hands  a 
strange  sceptre  called  the  caduceus',  3,  short  staff 
about  which  two  little  serpents  are  coiled,  and  at 
the  top  of  which  is  a  tiny  pair  of  wings.  This  is 
the  golden  rod  referred  to  by  the  poet;  when 
Hermes  touched  anybody  with  it,  the  soul  of  the 
person  touched  was  obliged  immediately  to  leave 
the  body  and  follow  after  him.  So  it  is  a  very 
beautiful  stroke  of  art  in  this  poem  to  represent 
the  touch  of  the  hand  of  great  love  as  having  the 
magical  power  of  the  golden  rod  of  Hermes.  It 
is  as  if  the  poet  were  to  say:  "Should  she  but 
touch  me,  I  know  that  my  spirit  would  leap  out  of 
my  body  and  follow  after  her."  Then  there  is 
the  expression  "crescent-browed."  It  means  only 
having  beautifully  curved  eyebrows — arched  eye- 
brows being  considered  particularly  beautiful  in 
Western  countries. 

Now  we  will  consider  another  poem  of  the 
ideal.  What  we  have  been  reading  referred  to 
ghostly  ideals,  to  memories,  or  to  hopes.  Let  us 
now  see  how  the  poets  have  talked  about  realities. 
Here  is  a  pretty  thing  by  Thomas  Ashe.  It  is  en- 
titled "Pansie";  and  this  flower  name  is  really  a 
corruption  of  a  French  word  "Penser,"  meaning 
a  thought.  The  flower  is  very  beautiful,  and  its 
name  is  sometimes  given  to  girls,  as  in  the  present 
case. 


THE  IDEAL  WOMAN  59 

MEET  WE  NO  ANGELS,  PANSIE? 

Came,  on  a  Sabbath  noon,  my  sweet, 

In  white,  to  find  her  lover; 
The  grass  grew  proud  beneath  her  feet, 

The  green  elm-leaves  above  her: — 
Meet  we  no  angels,  Pansie? 

She  said,  "  We  meet  no  angels  now ;" 
And  soft  lights  stream'd  upon  her; 

And  with  white  hand  she  touch'd  a  bough; 
She  did  it  that  great  honour: — 
What!  meet  no  angels,  Pansie? 

O  sweet  brown  hat,  brown  hair,  brown  eyes, 
Down-dropp'd  brown  eyes,  so  tender! 

Then  what  said  I  ?    Gallant  replies 
Seem  flattery,  and  offend  her: — 
But — meet  no  angels,  Pansie? 

The  suggestion  is  obvious,  that  the  maiden  real- 
izes to  the  lover's  eye  the  Ideal  of  an  angel.  As 
she  comes  he  asks  her  slyly, — for  she  has  been 
to  the  church — "Is  it  true  that  nobody  ever  sees 
real  angels?"  She  answers  innocently,  thinking 
him  to  be  in  earnest,  "No — long  ago  people  used 
to  see  angels,  but  in  these  times  no  one  ever  sees 
them."  He  does  not  dare  tell  her  how  beautiful 
she  seems  to  him;  but  he  suggests  much  more  than 
admiration  by  the  tone  of  his  protesting  response 
to  her  answer:  "What!  You  cannot  mean  to  say 
that  there  are  no  angels  now?"  Of  course  that  is 
the  same  as  to  say,  "I  see  an  angel  now" — but  the 


6o  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

girl  is  much  too  innocent  to  take  the  real  and  flat- 
tering meaning. 

Wordsworth's  portrait  of  the  ideal  woman  is 
very  famous;  it  was  written  about  his  own  wife, 
though  that  fact  would  not  be  guessed  from  the 
poem.  The  last  stanza  is  the  most  famous,  but 
we  had  better  quote  them  all. 

She  was  a  phantom  of  delight 

When  first  she  gleamed  upon  my  sight; 

A  lovely  apparition,   sent 

To  be  a  moment's  ornament; 

Her  eyes  as  stars  of  twilight  fair; 

Like  twilight's,  too,  her  dusky  hair; 

But  all  things  else  about  her  drawn 

From  May-time  and  the  cheerful  dawn; 

A  dancing  shape,  an  image  gay, 

To  haunt,  to  startle,  and  waylay. 

I  saw  her  upon  nearer  view, 

A  Spirit,  yet  a  Woman  too! 

Her  household  motions  light  and  free, 

And  steps  of  virgin  liberty; 

A  countenance  in  which  did  meet 

Sweet  records,   promises  as  sweet; 

A  creature  not  too  bright  or  good 

For  human  nature's  daily  food ; 

For  transient  sorrows,  simple  wiles, 

Praise,  blame,  love,  kisses,  tears  and  smiles. 

And  now  I  see  with  eye  serene 

The  very  pulse  of  the  machine;  « 

A  being  breathing  thoughtful  breath, 


THE  IDEAL  WOMAN  6i 

A  traveller  betwixt  life  and  death ; 
The  reason  firm,  the  temperate  will, 
Endurance,  foresight,  strength,  and  skill; 
A  perfect  woman,  nobly  plann'd. 
To  warn,  to  comfort  and  command; 
And  yet  a  Spirit  still,  and  bright 
With  something  of  angelic  light. 

1  quoted  this  after  the  Pansie  poem  to  show 
you  how  much  more  deeply  Wordsworth  could 
touch  the  same  subject.  To  him,  too,  the  first 
apparition  of  the  ideal  maiden  seemed  angelic; 
like  Ashe  he  could  perceive  the  mingled  attraction 
of  innocence  and  of  youth.  But  innocence  and 
youth  are  by  no  means  all  that  make  up  the  best 
attributes  of  woman;  character  is  more  than  In- 
nocence and  more  than  youth,  and  It  is  character 
that  Wordsworth  studies.  But  In  the  last  verse 
he  tells  us  that  the  angel  Is  always  there,  never- 
theless, even  when  the  good  woman  becomes  old. 
The  angel  is  the  Mother-soul. 

Wordsworth's  Idea  that  character  Is  the  su- 
preme charm  was  expressed  very  long  before  him 
by  other  English  poets,  notably  by  Thomas 
Carew. 

He  that  loves  a  rosy  cheek, 

Or  a  coral  lip  admires, 
Or  from  star-like  eyes  doth  seek 

Fuel  to  maintain  his  fires: 
As  old  Time  makes  these  decay. 

So  his  flames  must  waste  away. 


62  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

But  a  smooth  and  steadfast  mind, 
Gentle  thoughts  and  calm  desires, 

Hearts  with  equal  love  combined, 
Kindle  never-dying  fires. 

Where  these  are  not,  I  despise 
Lovely  cheeks  or  lips  or  eyes. 

For  about  three  hundred  years  in  English  lit- 
erature it  was  the  fashion — a  fashion  borrowed 
from  the  Latin  poets — to  speak  of  love  as  a  fire 
or  flame,  and  you  must  understand  the  image  in 
these  verses  in  that  signification.  To-day  the  fash- 
ion is  not  quite  dead,  but  very  few  poets  now 
follow  it. 

Byron  himself,  with  all  his  passion  and  his  af- 
fected scorn  of  ethical  convention,  could  and  did, 
when  he  pleased,  draw  beautiful  portraits  of 
moral  as  well  as  physical  attraction.  These  stan- 
zas are  famous;  they  paint  for  us  a  person  with 
equal  attraction  of  body  and  mind. 

She  walks  in  beauty,  like  the  night 
Of  cloudless  climes  and  starry  skies; 

And  all  that's  best  of  dark  and  bright 
Meet  in  her  aspect  and  her  eyes: 

Thus  mellow'd  to  that  tender  light 
Which  heaven  to  gaudy  day  denies. 

One  shade  the  more,  one  ray  the  less, 
Had  half  impair'd  the  nameless  grace 

Which  waves  in  every  raven  tress, 
Or  softly  lightens  o'er  her  face; 


THE  IDEAL  WOMAN  63 

Where  thoughts  serenely  sweet  express 
How  pure,  how  dear  their  dwelling-place. 

And  on  that  cheek,  and  o'er  that  brow. 

So  soft,  so  calm,  yet  eloquent, 
The  smiles  that  win,  the  tints  that  glow, 

But  tell  of  days  in  goodness  spent, 
A  mind  at  peace  with  all  below, 

A  heart  whose  love  is  innocent! 

It  is  worth  noticing  that  in  each  of  the  last  three 
poems,  the  physical  beauty  described  is  that  of 
dark  eyes  and  hair.  This  may  serve  to  remind 
you  that  there  are  two  distinct  types,  opposite 
types,  of  beauty  celebrated  by  English  poets;  and 
the  next  poem  which  I  am  going  to  quote,  the 
beautiful  "Ruth"  of  Thomas  Hood,  also  describes 
a  dark  woman. 

She  stood  breast-high  amid  the  corn, 
Clasp'd  by  the  golden  light  of  morn, 
Like  the  sweetheart  of  the  sun. 
Who  many  a  glowing  kiss  had  won. 

On  her  cheek  an  autumn  flush. 
Deeply  ripen'd; — such  a  blush 
In  the  midst  of  brown  was  born, 
Like  red  poppies  grown  with  corn. 

Round  her  eyes  her  tresses  fell, 
Which  were  blackest  none  could  tell, 
But  long  lashes  veil'd  a  light, 
That  had  else  been  all  too  bright. 


64  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

And  her  hat,  with  shady  brim, 
Made  her  tressy  forehead  dim; 
Thus  she  stood  among  the  stooks. 
Praising  God  with  sweetest  looks : — 

Sure,  I  said,  Heav'n  did  not  mean, 
Where  I  reap  thou  shouldst  but  glean, 
Lay  thy  sheaf  adown  and  come. 
Share  my  harvest  and  my  home. 

We  might  call  this  the  ideal  of  a  peasant  girl 
whose  poverty  appeals  to  the  sympathy  of  all 
who  behold  her.  The  name  of  the  poem  is  sug- 
gested indeed  by  the  Bible  story  of  Ruth  the 
gleaner,  but  the  story  In  the  poem  is  only  that  of 
a  rich  farmer  who  marries  a  very  poor  girl,  be- 
cause of  her  beauty  and  her  goodness.  It  Is  just 
a  charming  picture — a  picture  of  the  dark  beauty 
which  is  so  much  admired  In  Northern  countries, 
where  it  Is  less  common  than  In  Southern  Europe. 
There  are  beautiful  brown-skinned  types;  and  the 
flush  of  youth  on  the  cheeks  of  such  a  brown  girl 
has  been  compared  to  the  red  upon  a  ripe  peach 
or  a  russet  apple — a  hard  kind  of  apple,  very 
sweet  and  juicy,  which  Is  brown  instead  of  yellow, 
or  reddish  brown.  But  the  poet  makes  the  com- 
parison with  poppy  flowers  and  wheat.  That,  of 
course,  means  golden  yellow  and  red;  In  English 
wheat  fields  red  poppy  flowers  grow  In  abundance. 
The  expression  "tressy  forehead"  in  the  second 
line  of  the  fourth  stanza  means  a  forehead  half 
covered  with  falling,  loose  hair. 


THE  IDEAL  WOMAN  65 

The  foregoing  pretty  picture  may  be  offset  by 
a  charming  poem  of  Browning's  describing  a 
lover's  pride  in  his  illusion.  It  is  simply  entitled 
"Song,"  and  to  appreciate  it  you  must  try  to  un- 
derstand the  mood  of  a  young  man  who  believes 
that  he  has  actually  realized  his  ideal,  and  that 
the  woman  that  he  loves  is  the  most  beautiful  per- 
son In  the  whole  world.  The  fact  that  this  is 
simply  Imagination  on  his  part  does  not  make  the 
poem  less  beautiful — on  the  contrary,  the  false 
imagining  Is  just  what  makes  It  beautiful,  the 
youthful  emotion  of  a  moment  being  so  humanly 
and  frankly  described.  Such  a  youth  must  im- 
agine that  every  one  else  sees  and  thinks  about 
the  girl  just  as  he  does,  and  he  expects  them  to 
confess  It. 

Nay  but  you,  who  do  not  love  her, 

Is  she  not  pure  gold,  my  mistress? 
Holds  earth  aught — speak  truth — above  her? 

Aught  like  this  tress,  see,   and  this  tress, 
And  this  last  fairest  tress  of  all. 
So  fair,  see,  ere  I  let  it  fall? 

Because  you  spend  your  lives  In  praising; 

To  praise,  you  search  the  wide  world  over; 
Then  why  not  witness,  calmly  gazing, 

If  earth  holds  aught — speak  truth — above  her  ? 
Above  this  tress,  and  this,  I  touch 
But  cannot  praise,  I  love  so  much! 

You  see  the  picture,  I  think, — probably  some 


66  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

artist's  studio  for  a  background.  She  sits  or 
stands  there  with  her  long  hair  loosely  flowing 
down  to  her  feet  like  a  river  of  gold;  and  her 
lover,  lifting  up  some  of  the  long  tresses  in  his 
hand,  asks  his  friend,  who  stands  by,  to  notice  how 
beautiful  such  hair  is.  Perhaps  the  girl  was  hav- 
ing her  picture  painted.  One  would  think  so  from 
the  question,  "Since  your  business  is  to  look 
for  beautiful  things,  why  can  you  not  honestly 
acknowledge  that  this  woman  is  the  most  beautiful 
thing  in  the  whole  world?"  Or  we  might  im- 
agine the  questioned  person  to  be  a  critic  by  pro- 
fession as  well  as  an  artist.  Like  the  preceding 
poem  this  also  is  a  picture.  But  the  next  poem, 
also  by  Browning,  is  much  more  than  a  picture — 
it  is  very  profound  indeed,  simple  as  it  looks.  An 
old  man  is  sitting  by  the  dead  body  of  a  young 
girl  of  about  sixteen.  He  tells  us  how  he  secretly 
loved  her,  as  a  father  might  love  a  daughter,  as 
a  brother  might  love  a  sister.  But  he  would  have 
wished,  if  he  had  not  been  so  old,  and  she  so 
young,  to  love  her  as  a  husband.  He  never  could 
have  her  in  this  world,  but  why  should  he  not 
hope  for  it  in  the  future  world?  He  whispers 
into  her  dead  ear  his  wish,  and  he  puts  a  flower 
into  her  dead  hand,  thinking,  "When  she  wakes 
up,  in  another  life,  she  will  see  that  flower,  and 
remember  what  I  said  to  her,  and  how  much  I 
loved  her."  That  is  the  mere  story.  But  we 
must  understand  that  the  greatness  of  the  love 


THE  IDEAL  WOMAN  67 

expressed  in  the  poem  Is  awakened  by  an  ideal 
of  innocence  and  sweetness  and  goodness,  and  the 
affection  is  of  the  soul — that  is  to  say,  it  is  the 
love  of  beautiful  character,  not  the  love  of  a  beau- 
tiful face  only,  that  is  expressed. 

EVELYN  HOPE 

Beautiful  Evelyn   Hope   is  dead! 

Sit  and  watch  by  her  side  an  hour. 
That  is  her  book-shelf,  this  her  bed ; 

She  plucked  that  piece  of  geranium-flower, 
Beginning  to  die  too,  in  the  glass; 

Little  has  yet  been  changed,  I  think: 
The  shutters  are  shut,  no  light  can  pass 

Save  two  long  rays  through  the  hinge's  chink. 

Sixteen  years  old  when  she  died! 

Perhaps  she  had  scarcely  heard  my  name; 
It  was  not  her  time  to  love;  beside. 

Her  life  had  many  a  hope  and  aim, 
Duties  enough  and  little  cares, 

And  now  was  quiet,  now  astir, 
Till  God's  hand  beckoned  unawares, — 

And  the  sweet  white  brow  is  all  of  her. 

Is  it  too  late,   then,   Evelyn   Hope? 

What,  your  soul  was  pure  and  true, 
The  good  stars  met  in  your  horoscope, 

Made  you  of  spirit,  fire  and  dew — 
And  just  because  I  was  thrice  as  old 

And  our  paths  in  the  world  diverged  so  wide, 
Each  was  naught  to  each,  must  I  be  told? 

We  were  fellow  mortals,  naught  beside? 


68  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

No,  indeed !  for  God  above, 

Is  great  to  grant,  as  mighty  to  make, 
And  creates  the  love  to  reward  the  love: 

I  claim  you  still,  for  my  own  love's  sake! 
Delayed  it  may  be  for  more  lives  yet, 

Through  worlds  I  shall  traverse,  not  a  few: 
Much  is  to  learn,  much  to  forget, 

Ere  the  time  be  come  for  taking  you. 

But  the  time  will  come, — at  last  it  will. 

When,  Evelyn  Hope,  what  meant  (I  shall  say) 
In  the  lower  earth,  in  the  years  long  still, 

That  body  and  soul  so  pure  and  gay? 
Why  your  hair  was  amber,  I  shall  divine, 

And  your  mouth  of  your  own  geranium's  red — 
And  what  you  would  do  with  me,  in  fine, 

In  the  new  life  come  in  the  old  one's  stead. 

I  have  lived  (I  shall  say)  so  much  since  then, 

Given  up  myself  so  many  times, 
Gained  me  the  gains  of  various  men. 

Ransacked  the  ages,  spoiled  the  climes; 
Yet  one  thing,  one,  in  my  soul's  full  scope, 

Either  I  missed  or  itself  missed  me: 
And  I  want  and  find  you,  Evelyn  Hope! 

What  is  the  issue?  let  us  see! 

I  loved  you,  Evelyn,  all  the  while! 

My  heart  seemed  full  as  it  could  hold  ; 
There  was  space  and  to  spare  for  the  frank  young  smile, 

And  the  red  voung  mouth,  and  the  hair's  young  gold. 
So,  hush, — I  will  give  you  this  leaf  to  keep: 

See,  I  shut  it  inside  the  sweet  cold  hand! 


THE  IDEAL  WOMAN  69 

There,  that  is  our  secret :  go  to  sleep ! 

You  will  wake,  and  remember,  and  understand. 

No  Other  poet  has  written  so  many  different 
kinds  of  poems  on  this  subject  as  Browning;  and 
although  I  can  not  quote  all  of  them,  I  must  not 
neglect  to  make  a  just  representation  of  the  va- 
riety. Here  is  another  example :  the  chief  idea 
Is  again  the  beauty  of  truthfulness  and  fidelity, 
but  the  artistic  Impression  Is  quite  different. 

A  simple  ring  with  a  single  stone. 

To  the  vulgar  eye  no  stone  of  price : 
Whisper  the  right  word,  that  alone — 

Forth  starts  a  sprite,  like  fire  from  ice. 
And  lo,  you  are  lord  (says  an  Eastern  scroll) 
Of  heaven  and  earth,  lord  whole  and  sole 
Through  the  piwe-  in  a  pearl. 

A  woman  ('tis  I  this  time  that  say) 

With  little  the  world  counts  worthy  praise: 

Utter  the  true  word — out  and  away 
Escapes  her  soul ;  I  am  wrapt  in  blaze, 

Creation's  lord,  of  heaven  and  earth 

Lord  whole  and  sole — by  a  minute's  birth — 
Through  the  love  in  a  girl ! 

Paraphrased,  the  meaning  will  not  prove  as 
simple  as  the  verses:  Here  Is  a  finger  ring  set  with 
one  small  stone,  one  jewel.  It  Is  a  very  cheap- 
looking  stone  to  common  eyes.  But  if  you  know 
a  certain  magical  word,  and,  after  putting  the 
ring  on  your   finger,  you  whisper  that  magical 


7Q  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

word  over  the  cheap-looking  stone,  suddenly  a 
spirit,  a  demon  or  a  genie,  springs  from  that  gem 
like  a  flash  of  fire  miraculously  issuing  from  a 
lump  of  ice.  And  that  spirit  or  genie  has  power  to 
make  you  king  of  the  whole  world  and  of  the  sky 
above  the  world,  lord  of  the  spirits  of  heaven  and 
earth  and  air  and  fire.  Yet  the  stone  is  only  a 
pearl — and  it  can  make  you  lord  of  the  universe. 
That  is  the  old  Arabian  story.  The  word  scroll 
here  means  a  manuscript,  an  Arabian  manu- 
script. 

But  what  is  after  all  the  happiness  of  mere 
power?  There  is  a  greater  happiness  possible 
than  to  be  lord  of  heaven  and  earth;  that  is  the 
happiness  of  being  truly  loved.  Here  is  a  woman; 
to  the  eye  of  the  world,  to  the  sight  of  other  men, 
she  is  not  very  beautiful  nor  at  all  remarkable  in 
any  way.  She  is  just  an  ordinary  woman,  as  the 
pearl  in  the  ring  is  to  all  appearances  just  a  com- 
mon pearl.  But  let  the  right  word  be  said,  let 
the  soul  of  that  woman  be  once  really  touched  by 
the  magic  of  love,  and  what  a  revelation  !  As  the 
spirit  in  the  Arabian  story  sprang  from  the  stone 
of  the  magical  ring,  when  the  word  was  spoken, 
so  from  the  heart  of  this  woman  suddenly  her 
soul  displays  itself  in  shining  light.  And  the  man 
who  loves,  instantly  becomes,  in  the  splendour  of 
that  light,  verily  the  lord  of  heaven  and  earth; 
to  the  eyes  of  the  being  who  loves  him  he  is  a  god. 

The  legend  is  the  legend  of  Solomon — not  the 
Solomon  of  the  Bible,  but  the  much  more  won- 


THE  IDEAL  WOMAN  71 

derful  Solomon  of  the  Arabian  story-teller.  His 
power  is  said  to  have  been  in  a  certain  seal  ring, 
upon  which  the  mystical  name  of  Allah,  or  at 
least  one  of  the  ninety  and  nine  mystical  names, 
was  engraved.  When  he  chose  to  use  this  ring, 
all  the  spirits  of  air,  the  spirits  of  earth,  the 
spirits  of  water  and  the  spirits  of  fire  were  obliged 
to  obey  him.  The  name  of  such  a  ring  is  usually 
"Talisman." 

Here  is  another  of  Browning's  jewels,  one  of 
the  last  poems  written  shortly  before  his  death. 
It  is  entitled  "Summum  Bonum," — signifying  "the 
highest  good."  The  subject  is  a  kiss;  we  may 
understand  that  the  first  betrothal  kiss  is  the  mark 
of  affection  described.  When  the  promise  of  mar- 
riage has  been  made,  that  promise  is  sealed  or 
confirmed  by  the  first  kiss.  But  this  refers  only 
to  the  refined  classes  of  society.  Among  the  Eng- 
lish people  proper,  especially  the  country  folk, 
kissing  the  girls  is  only  a  form  of  showing  mere 
good  will,  and  has  no  serious  meaning  at  all. 

All  the  breath  and  the  bloom  of  the  year  in  the  bag  of 
one  bee: 
All  the  wonder  and  wealth  of  the  mine  in  the  heart  of 
one  gem : 
In  the  core  of  one  pearl  all  the  shade  and  the  shine  of 
the  sea: 
Breath  and  bloom,  shade  and  shine, — wonder,  wealth, 
and — how  far  above  them — 
Truth,  that's  brighter  than  gem, 
Trust,  that's  purer  than  pearl, — 


72  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

Brightest  truth,  purest  trust  in  the  universe — all  were 
for  me 
In  the  kiss  of  one  girl. 

There  is  in  this  a  suggestion  of  Ben  Jonson, 
who  uses  almost  exactly  the  same  simile  without 
any  moral  significance.  The  advantage  of  Brown- 
ing is  that  he  has  used  the  sensuous  imagery  for 
ethical  symbolism;  here  he  greatly  surpasses  Jon- 
son, though  it  would  be  hard  to  improve  upon  the 
beauty  of  Jonson's  verses,  as  merely  describing 
visual  beauty.    Here  are  Jonson's  stanzas: 

THE  TRIUMPH 

See  the  Chariot  at  hand  here  of  Love, 

Wherein  my  Lady  rideth! 
Each  that  draws  is  a  swan  or  a  dove. 

And  well  the  car  Love  guideth. 
As  she  goes,  all  hearts  do  duty 

Unto  her  beauty ; 
And  enamoured  do  wish,  so  they  might 

But  enjoy  such  a  sight. 
That  they  still  were  to  run  by  her  side, 
Through  swords,  through  seas,  whither  she  would  ride. 

Do  but  look  on  her  eyes,  they  do  light 

All  that  Love's  world  compriseth! 
Do  but  look  on  her  hair,  it  is  bright 

As  love's  star  when  it  riseth! 
Do  but  mark,  her  forehead's  smoother 

Than  words  that  soothe  her ; 


THE  IDEAL  WOMAN  73 

And  from  her  arch'd  brows  such  a  grace 

Sheds  itself  through  the  face, 
As  alone  there  triumphs  to  the  life 
All  the  gain,  all  the  good,  of  the  elements'  strife. 

Have  you  seen  but  a  bright  lily  grow 

Before  rude  hands  have  touched  it? 
Have  you  mark'd  but  the  fall  of  the  snow 

Before  the  soil  hath  smutch'd  it? 
Have  you  felt  the  wool  of  beaver 

Or  swan's  down  ever? 
Or  have  smelt  o'  the  bud  o'  the  brier, 

Or  the  nard  in  the  fire? 
Or  have  tasted  the  bag  of  the  bee? 
O  so  white,  O  so  soft,  O  so  sweet  is  she! 

The  first  of  the  above  stanzas  is  a  study  after 
the  Roman  poets;  but  the  last  stanza  is  Jonson's 
own  and  is  very  famous.  You  will  see  that 
Browning  was  probably  inspired  by  him,  but  I 
think  that  his  verses  are  much  more  beautiful  in 
thought  and  feeling. 

There  is  one  type  of  ideal  woman  very  seldom 
described  in  poetry — the  old  maid,  the  woman 
whom  sorrow  or  misfortune  prevents  from  ful- 
filling her  natural  destiny.  Commonly  the  woman 
who  never  marries  is  said  to  become  cross,  bad 
tempered,  unpleasant  in  character.  She  could  not 
be  blamed  for  this,  I  think;  but  there  are  old 
maids  who  always  remain  as  unselfish  and  frank 
and  kind  as  a  girl,  and  who  keep  the  charm  of 
girlhood  even  when  their  hair  is  white.     Hartley 


74  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

Coleridge,  son  of  the  great  Samuel,  attempted  to 
describe  such  a  one,  and  his  picture  is  both  touch- 
ing and  beautiful. 

THE  SOLITARY-HEARTED 

She  was  a  queen  of  noble  Nature's  crowning, 

A  smile  of  hers  was  like  an  act  of  grace; 
She  had  no  winsome  looks,  no  pretty  frowning, 

Like  daily  beauties  of  the  vulgar  race: 
But  if  she  smiled,  a  light  was  on  her  face, 

A  clear,  cool  kindliness,  a  lunar  beam 
Of  peaceful  radiance,  silvering  o'er  the  stream 

Of  human  thought  with  unabiding  glory ; 
Not  quite  a  waking  truth,  not  quite  a  dream, 

A  visitation,  bright  and  transitory. 

But  she  is  changed, — hath  felt  the  touch  of  sorrow, 

No  love  hath  she,  no  understanding  friend ; 
O  grief!  when  Heaven  is  forced  of  earth  to  borrow 

What  the  poor  niggard  earth  has  not  to  lend; 
But  when  the  stalk  is  snapt,  the  rose  must  bend. 

The  tallest  flower  that  skyward  rears  its  head 
Grows  from  the  common  ground,  and  there  must  shed 

Its  delicate  petals.     Cruel  fate,  too  surely 
That  they  should  find  so  base  a  bridal  bed, 

Who  lived  in  virgin  pride,  so  sweet  and  purely. 

She  had  a  brother,  and  a  tender  father. 
And  she  was  loved,  but  not  as  others  are 

From  whom  we  ask  return  of  love, — but  rather 
As  one  might  love  a  dream;  a  phantom  fair 

Of  something  exquisitely  strange  and  rare, 

Which  all  were  glad  to  look  on,  men  and  maids. 


THE  IDEAL  WOMAN  75 

Yet  no  one  claimed — as  oft,  in  dewy  glades, 
The  peering  primrose,  like  a  sudden  gladness. 

Gleams  on  the  soul,  yet  unregarded  fades; — 
The  joy  is  ours,  but  all  its  own  the  sadness. 

'Tis  vain  to  say — her  worst  of  grief  is  only 

The  common  lot,  which  all  the  world  have  known 
To  her  'tis  more,  because  her  heart  is  lonely. 

And  yet  she  hath  no  strength  to  stand  alone, — 
Once  she  had  playmates,  fancies  of  her  own, 

And  she  did  love  them.     They  are  past  away 
As  fairies  vanish  at  the  break  of  day; 

And  like  a  spectre  of  an  age  departed, 
Or  unsphered  angel  woefully  astray. 

She  glides  along — the  solitary-hearted. 

Perhaps  It  is  scarcely  possible  for  you  to  im- 
agine that  a  woman  finds  it  Impossible  to  marry 
because  of  being  too  beautiful,  too  wise,  and  too 
good.  In  Western  countries  it  Is  not  Impossible 
at  all.  You  must  try  to  Imagine  entirely  different 
social  conditions — conditions  In  which  marriage 
depends  much  more  upon  the  person  than  upon 
the  parents,  much  more  upon  inclination  than  upon 
anything  else.  A  woman's  chances  of  marriage 
depend  very  much  upon  herself,  upon  her  power 
of  pleasing  and  charming.  Thousands  and  tens 
of  thousands  can  never  get  married.  Now  there 
are  cases  in  which  a  woman  can  please  too  much. 
Men  become  afraid  of  her.  They  think,  "She 
knows  too  much,  I  dare  not  be  frank  with  her" — 
or,  "She  is  too  beautiful,  she  never  would  accept 


76  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

a  common  person  like  me" — or,  "She  Is  too  for- 
mal and  correct,  she  would  never  forgive  a  mis- 
take, and  I  could  never  be  happy  with  her."  Not 
only  is  this  possible,  but  it  frequently  happens. 
Too  much  excellence  makes  a  misfortune.  I  think 
you  can  understand  it  best  by  the  reference  to  the 
very  natural  prejudice  against  over-educated 
women,  a  prejudice  founded  upon  experience  and 
existing  in  all  countries,  even  In  Japan.  Men  are 
not  attracted  to  a  woman  because  she  is  excellent 
at  mathematics,  because  she  knows  eight  or  nine 
different  languages,  because  she  has  acquired  all 
the  conventions  of  high-pressure  training.  Men 
do  not  care  about  that.  They  want  love  and  trust 
and  kindliness  and  ability  to  make  a  home  beauti- 
ful and  happy.  Well,  the  poem  we  have  been 
reading  Is  very  pathetic  because  it  describes  a 
woman  who  can  not  fulfil  her  natural  destiny,  can 
not  be  loved — this  through  no  fault  of  her  own, 
but  quite  the  reverse.  To  be  too  much  advanced 
beyond  one's  time  and  environment  is  even  a 
worse  misfortune  than  to  be  too  much  behind. 


CHAPTER  IV 

NOTE   UPON   THE    SHORTEST   FORMS   OF    ENGLISH. 
POETRY 

Perhaps  there  is  an  idea  among  Japanese  stu- 
dents that  one  general  difference, between  Japa- 
nese and  Western  poetry  is  that  the  former  cul- 
tivates short  forms  and  the  latter  longer  ones. 
But  this  is  only  in  part  true.  It  is  true  that  short 
forms  of  poetry  have  been  cultivated  in  the  Far 
East  more  than  in  modern  Europe;  but  in  all 
European  literature  short  forms  of  poetry  are  to 
be  found — indeed  quite  as  short  as  anything  in 
Japanese.  Like  the  Japanese,  the  old  Greeks, 
who  carried  poetry  to  the  highest  perfection  that 
it  has  ever  attained,  delighted  in  short  forms;  and 
the  Greek  Anthology  is  full  of  compositions  con- 
taining only  two  or  three  lines.  You  will  find 
beautiful  translations  of  these  in  Symonds's  "Stud- 
ies of  Greek  Poets,"  in  the  second  volume.  Fol- 
lowing Greek  taste,  the  Roman  poets  afterwards 
cultivated  short  forms  of  verse,  but  they  chiefly 
used  such  verse  for  satirical  purposes,  unfortu- 
nately; I  say,  unfortunately,  because  the  first  great 
English  poets  who  imitated  the  ancients  were 
chiefly  influenced  by  the  Latin  writers,  and  they 

~17 


78  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

also  used  the  short  forms  for  epigrammatic  satire, 
rarely  for  a  purely  esthetic  object.  Ben  Jonson 
both  wrote  and  translated  a  great  number  of  very 
short  stanzas — two  lines  and  four  lines;  but  Jon- 
son was  a  satirist  in  these  forms,  Herrick,  as  you 
know,  delighted  in  very  short  poems;  but  he  was 
greatly  influenced  by  Jonson,  and  many  of  his 
couplets  and  of  his  quatrains  are  worthless  satires 
or  worthless  jests.  However,  you  will  find  some 
short  verses  in  Herrick  that  almost  make  you 
think  of  a  certain  class  of  Japanese  poems.  After 
the  Elizabethan  Age,  also,  the  miniature  poems 
were  still  used  in  the  fashion  set  by  the  Roman 
writers, — then  the  eighteenth  century  deluged  us 
with  ill-natured  witty  epigrams  of  the  like  brief 
form.  It  was  not  until  comparatively  modern 
times  that  our  Western  world  fully  recognized  the 
value  of  the  distich,  triplet  or  quatrain  for  the 
expression  of  beautiful  thoughts,  rather  than  for 
the  expression  of  ill-natured  ones.  But  now  that 
the  recognition  has  come,  it  has  been  discovered 
that  nothing  is  harder  than  to  write  a  beautiful 
poem  of  two  or  four  lines.  Only  great  masters 
have  been  truly  successful  at  it.  Goethe,  you 
know,  made  a  quatrain  that  has  become  a  part  of 
world-literature : 

Who  ne'er  his  bread  in  sorrow  ate, — 
Who  ne'er  the  lonely  midnight  hours, 

Weeping  upon  his  bed  has  sate, 

He  knows  ye  not,  ye  Heavenly  Powers  1 


ENGLISH  POETRY  79 

— meaning,  of  course,  that  inspiration  and  wis- 
dom come  to  us  only  through  sorrow,  and  that 
those  who  have  never  suffered  never  can  be  wise. 
But  in  the  universities  of  England  a  great  deal  of 
short  work  of  a  most  excellent  kind  has  been  done 
in  Greek  and  Latin;  and  there  is  the  celebrated 
case  of  an  EngHsh  student  who  won  a  prize  by  a 
poem  of  a  single  line.  The  subject  given  had  been 
the  miracle  of  Christ's  turning  water  into  wine  at 
the  marriage  feast;  and  while  other  scholars  at- 
tempted elaborate  composition  on  the  theme,  this 
student  wrote  but  one  verse,  of  which  the  English 
translation  is 

The  modest  water  saw  its  Lord,  and  blushed. 

Of  course  the  force  of  the  idea  depends  upon 
the  popular  conception  of  wine  being  red.  The 
Latin  and  Greek  model,  however,  did  not  seem 
to  encourage  much  esthetic  effort  in  short  poems 
of  English  verse  until  the  time  of  the  romantic 
movement.  Then,  both  in  France  and  England, 
many  brief  forms  of  poetry  made  their  appear- 
ance. In  France,  Victor  Hugo  attempted  com- 
position in  astonishingly  varied  forms  of  verse — 
some  forms  actually  consisting  of  only  two  sylla- 
bles to  a  line.  With  this  surprisingly  short  meas- 
ure begins  one  of  Hugo's  most  remarkably  early 
poems,  "Les  Djins,"  representing  the  coming  of 
evil  spirits  with  a  storm,  their  passing  over  the 
house  where  a  man  is  at  prayer,  and  departing 


8o  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

Into  the  distance  again.  Beginning  with  only  two 
syllables  to  the  line,  the  measure  of  the  poem  grad- 
ually widens  as  the  spirits  approach,  becomes  very 
wide,  very  long  and  sonorous  as  they  reach  the 
house,  and  again  shrinks  back  to  lines  of  two 
syllables  as  the  sound  of  them  dies  away.  In  Eng- 
land a  like  variety  of  experiments  has  been  made; 
but  neither  in  France  nor  in  England  has  the  short 
form  yet  been  as  successfully  cultivated  as  it  was 
among  the  Greeks.  We  have  some  fine  examples; 
but,  as  an  eminent  English  editor  observed  a  few 
years  ago,  not  enough  examples  to  make  a  book. 
And  of  course  this  means  that  there  are  very  few; 
for  you  can  make  a  book  of  poetry  very  well  with 
as  little  as  fifty  pages  of  largely  and  widely  printed 
text.  However,  we  may  cite  a  few  modern 
instances. 

I  think  that  about  the  most  perfect  quatrains 
we  have  are  those  of  the  extraordinary  man, 
Walter  Savage  Landor,  who,  you  know,  was  a 
rare  Greek  scholar,  all  his  splendid  English  work 
being  very  closely  based  upon  the  Greek  models. 
He  made  a  little  epitaph  upon  himself,  which  is 
matchless  of  its  kind: 

I  strove  with  none,  for  none  was  worth  my  strife ; 

Nature  I  loved,  and  next  to  Nature,  Art; 
I  warmed  both  hands  before  the  fire  of  life: 

It  sinks;  and  I  am  ready  to  depart. 

You  know  that  Greeks  used  the  short  form  a 


ENGLISH  POETRY  8i 

great  deal  for  their  exquisite  epitaphs,  and  that 
a  considerable  part  of  the  anthology  consists  of 
epitaphic  literature.  But  the  quatrain  has  a  much 
wider  range  than  this  funereal  limitation,  and  one 
such  example  of  epitaph  will  suffice. 

Only  one  English  poet  of  our  own  day,  and  that 
a  minor  one,  has  attempted  to  make  the  poem  of 
four  lines  a  specialty — that  is  William  Watson. 
He  has  written  a  whole  volume  of  such  little 
poems,  but  very  few  of  them  are  successful.  As 
I  said  before,  we  have  not  enough  good  poems  of 
this  sort  for  a  book;  and  the  reason  is  not  because 
English  poets  despise  the  short  form,  but  because 
it  is  supremely  difficult.  The  Greeks  succeeded  in 
it,  but  we  are  still  far  behind  the  Greeks  in  the 
shaping  of  any  kind  of  verse.  The  best  of  Wat- 
son's pieces  take  the  form  of  philosophical  sug- 
gestions; and  this  kind  of  verse  is  particularly  well 
adapted  to  philosophical  utterance. 

Think  not  thy  wisdom  can  illume  away 
The  ancient  tanglement  of  night  and  day. 
Enough  to  acknowledge  both,  and  both  revere; 
They  see  not  clearliest  who  see  all  things  clear. 

That  is  to  say,  do  not  think  that  any  human 
knowledge  will  ever  be  able  to  make  you  under- 
stand the  mystery  of  the  universe  with  its  darkness 
and  light,  its  joy  and  pain.  It  is  best  to  revere  the 
powers  that  make  both  good  and  evil,  and  to  re- 
member that  the  keenest,  worldly,  practical  minds 


82  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

are  not  the  minds  that  best  perceive  the  great 
truths  and  mysteries  of  existence.  Here  is  an- 
other little  bit,  reminding  us  somewhat  of  Goethe's 
quatrain,  already  quoted. 

Lives  there  whom  pain  hath  evermore  passed  by 
And  sorrow  shunned  with  an  averted  eye? 
Him  do  thou  pity, — him  above  the  rest, 
Him,  of  all  hapless  mortals  most  unblessed. 

That  needs  no  commentary,  and  it  contains  a 
large  truth  in  small  space.  Here  is  a  little  bit  on 
the  subject  of  the  artist's  ambition,  which  is  also 
good. 

The  thousand  painful  steps  at  last  are  trod, 
At  last  the  temple's  difficult  door  we  win, 

But  perfect  on  his  pedestal,  the  God 
Freezes  us  hopeless  when  we  enter  in. 

The  higher  that  the  artist  climbs  by  effort,  the 
nearer  his  approach  to  the  loftier  truth,  the  more 
he  understands  how  little  his  very  best  can  achieve. 
It  is  the  greatest  artist,  he  who  veritably  enters 
the  presence  of  God — that  most  feels  his  own 
weakness;  the  perception  of  beauty  that  other  men 
can  not  see,  terrifies  him,  freezes  him  motionless, 
as  the  poet  says. 

Out  of  all  of  Watson's  epigrams  I  believe  these 
are  the  best.  The  rest  with  the  possible  exception 
of  those  on  the  subject  of  love  seem  to  me  alto- 
gether failures.     Emerson  and  various  American 


ENGLISH  POETRY  83 

poets  also  attempted  the  quatrain — but  Emerson's 
verse  Is  nearly  always  bad,  even  when  his  thought 
is  sublime.    One  example  of  Emerson  will  suffice. 

Thou  canst  not  wave  thy  staff  in  air, 

Or  dip  thy  paddle  in  the  lake, 
But  it  carves  the  bow  of  beauty  there, 

And  the  ripples  in  rhyme  the  oar  forsake. 

The  form  is  atrociously  bad;  but  the  reflection 
is  grand — it  is  another  way  of  expressing  the  beau- 
tiful old  Greek  thought  that  "God  geometrizes 
everywhere" — that  is,  that  all  motion  is  in  geo- 
metrical lines,  and  full  of  beauty.  You  can  pick 
hundreds  of  fine  things  in  very  short  verse  out  of 
Emerson,  but  the  verse  is  nearly  always  shapeless; 
the  composition  of  the  man  invariably  makes  us 
think  of  diamonds  in  the  rough,  jewels  uncut.  So 
far  as  form  goes  a  much  better  master  of  quatrain 
is  the  American  poet  Aldrich,  who  wrote  the  fol- 
lowing little  thing,  entitled  "Popularity." 

Such  kings  of  shreds  have  wooed  and  won  her, 
Such  crafty  knaves  her  laurel  owned, 

It  has  become  almost  an  honour 
Not  to  be  crowned. 

This  is  good  verse.  The  reference  to  "a  king 
of  shreds  and  patches" — that  is,  a  beggar  king — 
you  will  recognize  as  Shakespearean.  But  al- 
though this  pretty  verse  has  in  it  more  philosophy 
than  satire,  it  approaches  the  satiric  class  of  epi- 


84  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

grams.  Neither  America  nor  England  has  been 
able  to  do  very  much  in  the  sort  of  verse  that  we 
have  been  talking  about.  Now  this  is  a  very  re- 
markable thing, — because  at  the  English  univer- 
sities beautiful  work  has  been  done  in  Greek  or 
Latin — in  poems  of  a  single  line,  of  two  lines,  of 
three  lines  and  other  very  brief  measures.  Why 
can  it  not  be  done  in  English?  I  suspect  that  it  is 
because  our  English  language  has  not  yet  become 
sufficiently  perfect,  sufficiently  flexible,  sufficiently 
melodious  to  allow  of  great  effect  with  a  very  few 
words.  We  can  do  the  thing  in  Greek  or  in  Latin 
because  either  Greek  or  Latin  is  a  more  perfect 
language. 

So  much  for  theory.  I  should  like  to  suggest, 
however,  that  it  is  very  probable  many  attempts 
at  these  difficult  forms  of  poetry  will  be  attempted 
by  English  poets  within  the  next  few  years.  There 
is  now  a  tendency  in  that  direction.  I  do  not  know 
whether  such  attempts  will  be  successful;  but  1 
should  like  you  to  understand  that  for  Western 
poets  they  are  extremely  difficult  and  that  you 
ought  to  obtain  from  the  recognition  of  this  fact 
a  new  sense  of  the  real  value  of  your  own  short 
forms  of  verse  in  the  hands  of  a  master.  Effects 
can  be  produced  in  Japanese  which  the  Greeks 
could  produce  with  few  syllables,  but  which  the 
English  can  not.  Now  It  strikes  me  that,  instead 
of  even  thinking  of  throwing  away  old  forms  of 
verse  in  order  to  invent  new  ones,  the  future  Jap- 


ENGLISH  POETRY  85 

anese  poets  ought  rather  to  develop  and  cultivate 
and  prize  the  forms  already  existing,  which  belong 
to  the  genius  of  the  language,  and  which  have 
proved  themselves  capable  of  much  that  no  Eng- 
lish verse  or  even  French  verse  could  accomplish. 
Perhaps  only  the  Italian  is  really  comparable  to 
Japanese  in  some  respects;  you  can  perform  mir-. 
acles  with  Italian  verse. 


CHAPTER  V 

SOME  FOREIGN  POEMS  ON  JAPANESE  SUBJECTS 

The  Western  poet  and  writer  of  romance  has 
exactly  the  same  kind  of  diiSculty  in  comprehend- 
ing Eastern  subjects  as  you  have  in  comprehend- 
ing Western  subjects.  You  will  commonly  find 
references  to  Japanese  love  poems  of  the  popular 
kind  made  in  such  a  way  as  to  indicate  the  writer's 
belief  that  such  poems  refer  to  married  life  or  at 
least  to  a  courtship  relation.  No  Western  writer 
who  has  not  lived  for  many  years  in  the  East, 
could  write  correctly  about  anything  on  this  sub- 
ject; and  even  after  a  long  stay  in  the  country  he 
might  be  unable  to  understand.  Therefore  a  great 
deal  of  Western  poetry  written  about  Japan  must 
seem  to  you  all  wrong,  and  I  can  not  hope  to  offer 
you  many  specimens  of  work  in  this  direction  that 
could  deserve  your  praise.  Yet  there  is  some 
poetry  so  fine  on  the  subject  of  Japan  that  I  think 
you  would  admire  it  and  I  am  sure  that  you  should 
know  it.  A  proof  of  really  great  art  is  that  it  is 
generally  true — it  seldom  falls  into  the  misappre- 
hensions to  which  minor  art  is  liable.  What  do 
you  think  of  the  fact  that  the  finest  poetry  ever 
written  upon  a  Japanese  subject  by  any  Western 
poet,  has  been  written  by  a  man  who  never  saw 

86 


POEMS  ON  JAPANESE  SUBJECTS    87 

the  land?  But  he  is  a  member  of  the  French 
Academy,  a  great  and  true  lover  of  art,  and  with- 
out a  living  superior  in  that  most  difficult  form  of 
poetry,  the  sonnet.  In  the  time  of  thirty  years  he 
produced  only  one  very  small  volume  of  sonnets, 
but  so  fine  are  these  that  they  were  lifted  to  the 
very  highest  place  in  poetical  distinction.  I  may 
say  that  there  are  now  only  three  really  great 
French  poets — survivals  of  the  grand  romantic 
school.  These  are  Leconte  de  Lisle,  Sully-Prud- 
homme,  and  Jose  Maria  de  Heredia.  It  is  the  last 
of  whom  I  am  speaking.  As  you  can  tell  by  his 
name,  he  is  not  a  Frenchman  either  by  birth  or 
blood,  but  a  Spaniard,  or  rather  a  Spanish  Creole, 
born  in  Cuba.  Heredia  knows  Japan  only  through 
pictures,  armour,  objects  of  art  in  museums,  paint- 
ings and  carvings.  Remembering  this,  I  think 
that  you  will  find  that  he  does  wonderfully  well. 
It  is  true  that  he  puts  a  woman  in  one  of  his  pic- 
tures, but  I  think  that  his  management  of  his  sub- 
ject is  very  much  nearer  the  truth  than  that  of 
almost  any  writer  who  has  attempted  to  describe 
old  Japan.  And  you  must  understand  that  the 
following  sonnet  is  essentially  intended  to  be  a 
picture — to  produce  upon  the  mind  exactly  the 
same  effect  that  a  picture  does,  with  the  addition 
of  such  life  as  poetry  can  give. 

LE  SAMOURAI 
D'un  doigt  distrait  frolant  la  sonore  biva, 
A  travers  les  bambous  tresses  en  fine  latte. 


88  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

EUe  a  vu,  par  la  plage  eblouissante  et  plate, 
S'avancer  le  vainqueur  que  son  amour  reva. 

C'est  lui.     Sabres  au  flanc,  I'eventail  haut,  il  va. 
La  cordeliere  rouge  et  le  gland  ecarlate 
Coupent  I'armure  sombre,  et,  sur  I'epaule,  eclate 
Le  blazon  de  Hizen  ou  de  Tokungawa. 

Ce  beau  guerrier  vetu  de  lames  et  de  plaques, 
Sous  le  bronze,  la  soie  et  les  brillantes  laques, 
Semble  un  crustace  noir,  gigantesque  et  vermeil. 

II  l*a  vue.    II  sourit  dans  la  barbe  du  masque, 

Et  son  pas  plus  hatif  fait  reluire  au  soleil 

Les  deux  antennes  d'or  qui  tremblent  a  son  casque. 

"Lightly  touching  her  biva  with  heedless  finger, 
she  has  perceived,  through  the  finely  woven  bam- 
boo screen,  the  conqueror,  lovingly  thought  of, 
approach  over  the  dazzling  level  of  the  beach. 

"It  is  he.  With  his  swords  at  his  side  he  ad- 
vances, holding  up  his  fan.  The  red  girdle  and 
the  scarlet  tassel  appear  In  sharply  cut  relief 
against  the  dark  armour;  and  upon  his  shoulder 
glitters  a  crest  of  HIzen  or  of  Tokungawa. 

"This  handsome  warrior  sheathed  with  his 
scales  and  plates  of  metal,  under  his  bronze,  his 
silk  and  glimmering  lacquer,  seems  a  crustacean, 
gigantic,  black  and  vermilion. 

"He  has  caught  sight  of  her.  Under  the  beaver 
of  the  war  mask  he  smiles,  and  his  quickened  step 


POEMS  ON  JAPANESE  SUBJECTS    89 

makes  to  glitter  in  the  sun  the  two  antennae  of  gold 
that  quiver  upon  his  helmet." 

The  comparison  of  a  warrior  in  full  armour  to 
a  gigantic  crab  or  lobster,  especially  lobster,  is  not 
exactly  new.  Victor  Hugo  has  used  it  before  in 
French  literature,  just  as  Carlyle  has  used  it  in 
English  literature;  indeed  the  image  could  not  fail 
to  occur  to  the  artist  in  any  country  where  the 
study  of  armour  has  been  carried  on.  But  here 
the  poet  does  not  speak  of  any  particular  creature; 
he  uses  only  the  generic  term,  crustacean,  the 
vagueness  of  which  makes  the  comparison  much 
more  effective.  I  think  you  can  see  the  whole  pic- 
ture at  once.  It  is  a  Japanese  colour-print, — some 
ancient  interior,  lighted  by  the  sun  of  a  great  sum- 
mer day;  and  a  woman  looking  through  a  bamboo 
blind  toward  the  seashore,  where  she  sees  a  war- 
rior approaching.  He  divines  that  he  Is  seen;  but 
if  he  smiles,  it  is  only  because  the  smile  is  hidden 
by  his  iron  mask.  The  only  sign  of  any  sentiment 
on  his  part  is  that  he  walks  a  little  quicker.  Still 
more  amazing  is  a  companion  picture,  containing 
only  a  solitary  figure: 

LE  DAIMIO   (Matin  de  batailleV 
Sous  le  noir  fouet  de  guerre  a  quadruple  pompon, 
L'etalon  belliqueux  en  hennissant  se  cabre, 
Et  fait  bruire,  avec  de  cliquetis  de  sabre, 
La  cuirasse  de  bronze  aux  lames  du  jupon. 


90  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

Le  Chef  vetu  d'airain,  de  laque  et  de  crepon, 
Otant  le  masque  a  polls  de  son  visage  glabre, 
Regarde  le  volcan  sur  un  ciel  de  cinabre 
Dresser  la  neige  ou  rit  I'aurore  du  Nippon. 

Mais  il  a  vu,  vers  I'Est  eclabousse  d'or,  I'astre, 
Glorieux  d'eclairer  ce  matin  de  desastre, 
Poindre,  orbe  eblouissant,  au-dessus  de  la  mer; 

Et  pour  couvrir  ses  yeux  dont  pas  un  cil  ne  bouge, 
II  ouvre  d'un  seul  coup  son  eventail  de  fer, 
Oil  dans  le  satin  blanc  se  leve  un  Soleil  rouge. 

"Under  the  black  war  whip  with  its  quadruple 
pompon  the  fierce  stallion,  whinnying,  curvets, 
and  makes  the  rider's  bronze  cuirass  ring  against 
the  plates  of  his  shirt  of  mail,  with  a  sound  like 
the  clashing  of  sword  blades. 

"The  Chief,  clad  in  bronze  and  lacquer  and 
silken  crape,  removing  the  bearded  masque  from 
his  beardless  face,  turns  his  gaze  to  the  great  vol- 
cano, lifting  its  snows  into  the  cinnabar  sky  where 
the  dawn  of  Nippon  begins  to  smile. 

"Nay!  he  has  already  seen  the  gold-spattered 
day  star,  gloriously  illuminating  the  morning  of 
disaster,  rise,  a  blinding  disk,  above  the  seas.  And 
to  shade  his  eyes,  on  both  of  which  not  even  a 
single  eyelash  stirs,  he  opens  with  one  quick  move- 
ment his  iron  fan,  wherein  upon  a  field  of  white 
satin  there  rises  a  crimson  sun." 

Of  course  this  hasty  translation  is  very  poor; 
and  you  can  only  get  from  it  the  signification  and 


POEMS  ON  JAPANESE  SUBJECTS    91 

colour  of  the  picture — the  beautiful  sonority  and 
luminosity  of  the  French  Is  all  gone.  Neverthe- 
less, I  am  sure  that  the  more  you  study  the  original 
the  more  you  will  see  how  fine  It  Is.  Here  also  is 
a  Japanese  colour  print.  We  see  the  figure  of  the 
horseman  on  the  shore,  in  the  light  of  dawn;  be- 
hind him  the  still  dark  sky  of  night;  before  him 
the  crimson  dawn,  and  Fuji  white  against  the  red 
sky.  And  In  the  open  fan,  with  Its  red  sun,  we 
have  a  grim  suggestion  of  the  day  of  blood  that  is 
about  to  be;  that  is  all.  But  whoever  reads  that 
sonnet  will  never  forget  It;  it  burns  into  the  mem- 
ory. So,  Indeed,  does  everything  that  Heredia 
writes.  Unfortunately  he  has  not  yet  written  any- 
thing more  about  Japan. 

I  have  quoted  Heredia  because  I  think  that  no 
other  poet  has  even  approached  him  in  the  attempt 
to  make  a  Japanese  picture — though  many  others 
have  tried;  and  the  French,  nearly  always,  have 
done  much  better  than  the  English,  because  they 
are  more  naturally  artists.  Indeed  one  must  be 
something  of  an  artist  to  write  anything  in  the 
way  of  good  poetry  on  a  Japanese  subject.  If  you 
look  at  the  collection  "Poems  of  Places,"  In  the 
library,  you  will  see  how  poorly  Japan  Is  there 
represented;  the  only  respectable  piece  of  foreign 
work  being  by  Longfellow,  and  that  Is  only  about 
Japanese  vases.  But  since  then  some  English 
poems  have  appeared  which  are  at  least  worthy 
of  Japanese  notice. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE   BIBLE   IN   ENGLISH   LITERATURE 

It  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  the  English  Bible 
is,  next  to  Shakespeare,  the  greatest  work  in  Eng- 
lish literature,  and  that  it  will  have  much  more 
influence  than  even  Shakespeare  upon  the  written 
and  spoken  language  of  the  English  race.  For 
this  reason,  to  study  English  literature  without 
some  general  knowledge  of  the  relation  of  the 
Bible  to  that  literature  would  be  to  leave  one's 
literary  education  very  incomplete.  It  is  not  nec- 
essary to  consider  the  work  from  a  religious  point 
of  view  at  all;  indeed,  to  so  consider  it  would  be 
rather  a  hindrance  to  the  understanding  of  its  lit- 
erary excellence.  Some  persons  have  ventured  to 
say  that  it  is  only  since  Englishmen  ceased  to  be- 
lieve In  the  Bible  that  they  began  to  discover  how 
beautiful  It  was.  This  is  not  altogether  true;  but 
it  is  partly  true.  For  it  Is  one  thing  to  consider 
every  word  of  a  book  as  the  word  of  God  or  gods, 
and  another  thing  to  consider  it  simply  as  the 
work  of  men  like  ourselves.  Naturally  we  should 
think  it  our  duty  to  suppose  the  work  of  a  divine 
being  perfect  In  Itself,  and  to  imagine  beauty  and 
truth  where  neither  really  exists.    The  wonder  of 

9a 


THE  BIBLE  93 

the  English  Bible  can  really  be  best  appreciated 
by  those  who,  knowing  it  to  be  the  work  of  men 
much  less  educated  and  cultivated  than  the  schol- 
ars of  the  nineteenth  century,  nevertheless  per- 
ceive that  those  men  were  able  to  do  in  literature 
what  no  man  of  our  own  day  could  possibly  do. 

Of  course  in  considering  the  work  of  the  trans- 
lators, we  must  remember  the  magnificence  of  the 
original.  I  should  not  like  to  say  that  the  Bible 
is  the  greatest  of  all  religious  books.  From  the 
moral  point  of  view  it  contains  very  much  that 
we  can  not  to-day  approve  of;  and  what  is  good 
in  it  can  be  found  in  the  sacred  books  of  other  na- 
tions. Its  ethics  can  not  even  claim  to  be  abso- 
lutely original.  The  ancient  Egyptian  scriptures 
contain  beauties  almost  superior  in  moral  exalta- 
tion to  anything  contained  in  the  Old  Testament; 
and  the  sacred  books  of  other  Eastern  nations, 
notably  the  sacred  books  of  India,  surpass  the 
Hebrew  scriptures  In  the  highest  qualities  of  im- 
agination and  of  profound  thought.  It  is  only  of 
late  years  that  Europe,  through  the  labour 
of  Sanskrit  and  Pali  scholars,  has  become  ac- 
quainted with  the  astonishing  beauty  of  thought 
and  feeling  which  Indian  scholars  enshrined  in 
scriptures  much  more  voluminous  than  the  He- 
brew Bible;  and  it  is  not  impossible  that  this  far- 
off  literature  will  some  day  influence  European 
thought  quite  as  much  as  the  Jewish  Bible.  Every- 
where to-day  in  Europe  and  America  the  study  of 


94  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

Buddhist  and  Sanskrit  literature  is  being  pursued 
not  only  with  eagerness  but  with  enthusiasm — an 
enthusiasm  which  sometimes  reaches  to  curious 
extremes.  I  might  mention,  in  example,  the  case 
of  a  rich  man  who  recently  visited  Japan  on  his 
way  from  India.  He  had  in  New  Zealand  a  val- 
uable property;  he  was  a  man  of  high  culture,  and 
of  considerable  social  influence.  One  day  he  hap- 
pened to  read  an  English  translation  of  the 
"Bhagavad-Gita."  Almost  immediately  he  re- 
solved to  devote  the  rest  of  his  hfe  to  religious 
study  in  India,  in  a  monastery  among  the  moun- 
tains; and  he  gave  up  wealth,  friends,  society, 
everything  that  Western  civilization  could  offer 
him,  in  order  to  seek  truth  in  a  strange  country. 
Certainly  this  is  not  the  only  instance  of  the  kind; 
and  while  such  incidents  can  happen,  we  may  feel 
sure  that  the  influence  of  religious  literature  is 
not  likely  to  die  for  centuries  to  come. 

But  every  great  scripture,  whether  Hebrew, 
Indian,  Persian,  or  Chinese,  apart  from  its  reli- 
gious value  will  be  found  to  have  some  rare  and 
special  beauty  of  its  own;  and  in  this  respect  the 
original  Bible  stands  very  high  as  a  monument 
of  sublime  poetry  and  of  artistic  prose.  If  it  is 
not  the  greatest  of  religious  books  as  a  literary 
creation,  it  is  at  all  events  one  of  the  greatest;  and 
the  proof  is  to  be  found  in  the  inspiration  which 
millions  and  hundreds  of  millions,  dead  and  living, 
have  obtained  from  its  utterances.     The  Semitic 


THE  BIBLE  95 

races  have  always  possessed  in  a  very  high  degree 
the  genius  of  poetry,  especially  poetry  in  which 
imagination  plays  a  great  part;  and  the  Bible  is 
the  monument  of  Semitic  genius  in  this  regard. 
Something  in  the  serious,  stern,  and  reverential 
spirit  of  the  genius  referred  to  made  a  particular 
appeal  to  Western  races  having  certain  character- 
istics of  the  same  kind.  Themselves  uncultivated 
in  the  time  that  the  Bible  was  first  made  known 
to  them,  they  found  in  it  almost  everything  that 
they  thought  and  felt,  expressed  in  a  much  better 
way  than  they  could  have  expressed  it.  Accord- 
ingly the  Northern  races  of  Europe  found  their 
inspiration  in  the  Bible;  and  the  enthusiasm  for  it 
has  not  yet  quite  faded  away. 

But  the  value  of  the  original,  be  it  observed,  did 
not  make  the  value  of  the  English  Bible.  Cer- 
tainly it  was  an  inspiring  force;  but  it  was  noth- 
ing more.  The  English  Bible  is  perhaps  a  much 
greater  piece  of  fine  literature,  altogether  consid- 
ered, than  the  Hebrew  Bible.  It  was  so  for  a  par- 
ticular reason  which  it  is  very  necessary  for  the 
student  to  understand.  The  English  Bible  is  a 
product  of  literary  evolution. 

In  studying  English  criticisms  upon  different 
authors,  I  think  that  you  must  have  sometimes  felt 
impatient  with  the  critics  who  told  you,  for  ex- 
ample, that  Tennyson  was  partly  inspired  by 
Wordsworth  and  partly  by  Keats  and  partly  by 
Coleridge;  and  that  Coleridge  was  partly  inspired 


96  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

by  Blake  and  Blake  by  the  Elizabethans,  and  so 
on.  You  may  have  been  tempted  to  say,  as  1  used 
very  often  myself  to  say,  "What  does  it  matter 
where  the  man  got  his  ideas  from?  I  care  only 
for  the  beauty  that  is  in  his  work,  not  for  a  history 
of  his  literary  education."  But  to-day  the  value 
of  the  study  of  such  relations  appears  in  quite  a 
new  light.  Evolutional  philosophy,  applied  to  the 
study  of  literature  as  to  everything  else,  has  shown 
us  conclusively  that  man  is  not  a  god  who  can 
make  something  out  of  nothing,  and  that  every 
great  work  of  genius  must  depend  even  less  upon 
the  man  of  genius  himself  than  upon  the  labours 
of  those  who  lived  before  him.  Every  great 
author  must  draw  his  thoughts  and  his  knowledge 
in  part  from  other  great  authors,  and  these  again 
from  previous  authors,  and  so  on  back,  till  we 
come  to  that  far  time  in  which  there  was  no  writ- 
ten literature,  but  only  verses  learned  by  heart  and 
memorized  by  all  the  people  of  some  one  tribe  or 
place,  and  taught  by  them  to  their  children  and  to 
their  grandchildren.  It  is  only  in  Greek  myth- 
ology that  the  divinity  of  Wisdom  leaps  out  of  a 
god's  head,  in  full  armour.  In  the  world  of 
reality  the  more  beautiful  a  work  of  art,  the 
longer,  we  may  be  sure,  was  the  time  required  to 
make  it,  and  the  greater  the  number  of  different 
minds  which  assisted  in  its  development. 

So  with  the  English  Bible.    No  one  man  could 
have  made  the  translation  of  1611.    No  one  gen- 


THE  BIBLE  97 

eration  of  men  could  have  done  it.  It  was  not  the 
labour  of  a  single  century.  It  represented  the  work 
of  hundreds  of  translators  working  through  hun- 
dreds of  years,  each  succeeding  generation  improv- 
ing a  little  upon  the  work  of  the  previous  genera- 
tion, until  in  the  seventeenth  century  the  best  had 
been  done  of  which  the  English  brain  and  the  Eng- 
lish language  was  capable.  In  no  other  way  can  the 
surprising  beauties  of  style  and  expression  be  ex- 
plained. No  subsequent  effort  could  improve  the 
Bible  of  King  James.  Every  attempt  made  since 
the  seventeenth  century  has  only  resulted  in  spoil- 
ing and  deforming  the  strength  and  the  beauty  of 
the  authorized  text. 

Now  you  will  understand  why,  from  the  purely 
literary  point  of  view,  the  English  Bible  Is  of  the 
utmost  importance  for  study.  Suppose  we  glance 
for  a  moment  at  the  principal  events  in  the  history 
of  this  evolution. 

The  first  translation  of  the  Bible  into  a  Western 
tongue  was  that  made  by  Jerome  (commonly 
called  Saint  Jerome)  in  the  fourth  century;  he 
translated  directly  from  the  Hebrew  and  other 
Arabic  languages  into  Latin,  then  the  language  of 
the  Empire.  This  translation  into  Latin  was 
called  the  Vulgate, — from  vulgare,  "to  make  gen- 
erally known."  The  Vulgate  is  still  used  in  the 
Roman  church.  The  first  English  translations 
which  have  been  preserved  to  us  were  made  from 
the  Vulgate,  not  from  the  original  tongues. 


98  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

First  of  all,  John  Wycliffe's  Bible  may  be  called 
the  foundation  of  the  seventeenth  century  Bible. 
Wycliffe's  translation,  in  which  he  was  helped  by 
many  others,  was  published  between  1380  and 
1388.  So  we  may  say  that  the  foundation  of  the 
English  Bible  dates  from  the  fourteenth  century, 
one  thousand  years  after  Jerome's  Latin  transla- 
tion. But  Wychffe's  version,  excellent  as  it  was, 
could  not  serve  very  long:  the  English  language 
was  changing  too  quickly.  Accordingly,  in  the 
time  of  Henry  VIII  Tyndale  and  Coverdale,  with 
many  others,  made  a  new  translation,  this  time 
not  from  the  Vulgate,  but  from  the  Greek  text  of 
the  great  scholar  Erasmus.  This  was  the  most 
important  literary  event  of  the  time,  for  "it  col- 
oured the  entire  complexion  of  subsequent  English 
prose," — to  use  the  words  of  Professor  Gosse. 
This  means  that  all  prose  in  English  written  since 
Henry  VIII  has  been  influenced,  directly  or  in- 
directly, by  the  prose  of  Tyndale's  Bible,  which 
was  completed  about  1535.  Almost  at  the  same 
time  a  number  of  English  divines,  under  the  super- 
intendence of  Archbishop  Cranmer,  gave  to  the 
English  language  a  literary  treasure  scarcely  in- 
ferior to  the  Bible  itself,  and  containing  wonder- 
ful translations  from  the  Scriptures, — the  "Book 
of  Common  Prayer."  No  English  surpasses  the 
English  of  this  book,  still  used  by  the  Church;  and 
many  translators  have  since  found  new  inspiration 
from  it. 


THE  BIBLE  99 

A  revision  of  this  famous  Bible  was  made  in 
1565,  entitled  "The  Bishops'  Bible."  The  cause 
of  the  revision  was  largely  doctrinal,  and  we  need 
not  trouble  ourselves  about  this  translation  far- 
ther than  to  remark  that  Protestantism  was  re- 
shaping the  Scriptures  to  suit  the  new  state  re- 
ligion. Perhaps  this  edition  may  have  had  some- 
thing to  do  with  the  determination  of  the  Roman 
Catholics  to  make  an  English  Bible  of  their  own. 
The  Jesuits  began  the  work  in  1582  at  Rhelms, 
and  by  16 10  the  Roman  Catholic  version  known 
as  the  Douay  (or  Douai)  version — because  of  its 
having  been  made  chiefly  at  the  Catholic  College 
of  Douai  in  France — was  completed.  This  ver- 
sion has  many  merits;  next  to  the  wonderful  King 
James  version,  it  is  certainly  the  most  poetical; 
and  it  has  the  further  advantage  of  including  a 
number  of  books  which  Protestantism  has  thrown 
out  of  the  authorized  version,  but  which  have  been 
used  in  the  Roman  church  since  its  foundation. 
But  I  am  speaking  of  the  book  only  as  a  literary 
English  production.  It  was  not  made  with  the 
help  of  original  sources;  its  merits  are  simply 
those  of  a  melodious  translation  from  the  Latin 
Vulgate. 

At  last,  in  161 1,  was  made,  under  the  auspices 
of  King  James,  the  famous  King  James  version; 
and  this  is  the  great  literary  monument  of  the 
English  language.  It  was  the  work  of  many 
learned  men;  but  the  chief  worker  and  supervisor 


100  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

was  the  Bishop  of  Winchester,  Lancelot  Andrews, 
perhaps  the  most  eloquent  English  preacher  that 
ever  lived.  He  was  a  natural-born  orator,  with  an 
exquisite  ear  for  the  cadences  of  language.  To 
this  natural  faculty  of  the  Bishop's  can  be  attrib- 
uted much  of  the  musical  charm  of  the  English  in 
which  the  Bible  was  written.  Still,  it  must  not  be 
supposed  that  he  himself  did  all  the  work,  or  even 
more  than  a  small  proportion  of  it.  What  he  did 
was  to  tone  it;  he  overlooked  and  corrected  all  the 
text  submitted  to  him,  and  suffered  only  the  best 
forms  to  survive.  Yet  what  magnificent  material 
he  had  to  choose  from  1  All  the  translations  of 
the  Bible  that  had  been  made  before  his  time  were 
carefully  studied  with  a  view  to  the  conservation 
of  the  best  phrases,  both  for  sound  and  for  form. 
We  must  consider  the  result  not  merely  as  a  study 
of  literature  in  itself,  but  also  as  a  study  of  elo- 
quence; for  every  attention  was  given  to  those  ef- 
fects to  be  expected  from  an  oratorical  recitation 
of  the  text  in  public. 

This  marks  the  end  of  the  literary  evolution  of 
the  Bible.  Everything  that  has  since  been  done 
has  only  been  in  the  direction  of  retrogression,  of 
injury  to  the  text.  We  have  now  a  great  many 
later  versions,  much  more  scholarly,  so  far  as  cor- 
rect scholarship  is  concerned,  than  the  King  James 
version,  but  none  having  any  claim  to  literary 
importance.      Unfortunately,    exact   scholars   are 


THE  BIBLE  loi 

very  seldom  men  of  literary  ability;  the  two  fac- 
ulties are  rarely  united.  The  Bible  of  1870, 
known  as  the  Oxford  Bible,  and  now  used  in  the 
Anglican  state-church,  evoked  a  great  protest 
from  the  true  men  of  letters,  the  poets  and  critics 
who  had  found  their  inspirations  in  the  useful 
study  of  the  old  version.  The  new  version  was 
the  work  of  fourteen  years;  it  was  made  by  the 
united  labour  of  the  greatest  scholars  in  the  Eng- 
lish-speaking world;  and  it  is  far  the  most  exact 
translation  that  we  have.  Nevertheless  the  liter- 
ary quality  has  been  injured  to  such  an  extent  that 
no  one  will  ever  turn  to  the  new  revision  for  poet- 
ical study.  Even  among  the  churches  there  was 
a  decided  condemnation  of  this  scholarly  treat- 
ment of  the  old  text;  and  many  of  the  churches 
refused  to  use  the  book.  In  this  case,  conserv- 
atism is  doing  the  literary  world  a  service,  keep- 
ing the  old  King  James  version  in  circulation, 
and  insisting  especially  upon  its  use  in  Sunday 
schools. 

We  may  now  take  a  few  examples  of  the  dif- 
ferences between  the  revised  version  and  the  Bible 
of  King  James.  Professor  Saintsbury,  in  an  essay 
upon  English  prose,  published  some  years  ago, 
said  that  the  most  perfect  piece  of  English  prose 
in  the  language  was  that  comprised  in  the  sixth 
and  seventh  verses  of  the  eighth  chapter  of  the 
Song  of  Songs: 


102  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

Set  me  as  a  seal  upon  thine  heart,  as  a  seal  upon  thine 
arm:  for  love  is  strong  as  death;  jealousy  is  cruel  as  the 
grave;  the  coals  thereof  are  coals  of  fire,  which  hath  a 
most  vehement  flame. 

Many  waters  can  not  quench  love,  neither  can  the  floods 
drown  it:  if  a  man  would  give  all  the  substance  of  his 
house  for  love,  it  would  utterly  be  condemned. 

I  should  not  like  to  say  that  the  Professor  is 
certainly  right  in  calling  this  the  finest  prose  in 
the  English  language;  but  he  is  a  very  great  critic, 
whose  opinion  must  be  respected  and  considered, 
and  the  passage  is  certainly  very  fine.  But  in  the 
revised  version,  how  tame  the  same  text  has  be- 
come in  the  hands  of  the  scholarly  translators  1 

The  flashes  thereof  are  flashes  of  fire,  a  very  flame  of 
the  Lord. 

Now  as  a  description  of  jealousy,  not  to  speak 
of  the  literary  execution  at  all,  which  is  the  best? 
What,  we  may  ask,  has  been  gained  by  calling 
jealousy  "a  flame  of  the  Lord"  or  by  substituting 
the  word  "flashes"  for  "coals  of  fire"?  All 
through  the  new  version  are  things  of  this  kind. 
For  example,  in  the  same  Song  of  Songs  there  is  a 
beautiful  description  of  eyes,  like  "doves  by  the 
rivers  of  waters,  washed  with  milk,  and  fitly  set." 
By  substituting  "rivers"  only  for  "rivers  of 
waters"  the  text  may  have  gained  in  exactness,  but 
It  has  lost  Immeasurably,  both  In  poetry  and  in 
sound.  Far  more  poetical  is  the  verse  as  given 
in  the  Douai  version :  "His  eyes  are  as  doves  upon 


THE  BIBLE  103 

brooks  of  waters,  which  are  washed  with  milk, 
and  sit  beside  the  beautiful  streams." 

It  may  even  be  said  without  any  question  that 
the  mistakes  of  the  old  translators  were  often 
much  more  beautiful  than  the  original.  A  splen- 
did example  is  given  in  the  verse  of  Job,  chapter 
twenty-six,  verse  thirteen:  "By  his  spirit  he  hath 
garnished  the  heavens;  his  hand  hath  formed  the 
crooked  serpent."  By  the  crooked  serpent  was 
supposed  to  be  signified  the  grand  constellation 
called  Draco,  or  the  Dragon.  And  the  figure  is 
sublime.  It  is  still  more  sublime  in  the  Douai 
translation.  "His  obstetric  hand  hath  brought 
forth  the  Winding  Serpent."  This  is  certainly  a 
grand  imagination — the  hand  of  God,  like  the 
hand  of  a  midwife,  bringing  forth  a  constellation 
out  of  the  womb  of  the  eternal  night.  But  in  the 
revised  version,  which  is  exact,  we  have  only  "His 
hand  hath  pierced  the  Swift  Serpent!"  All  the 
poetry  is  dead. 

There  are  two  methods  for  the  literary  study 
of  any  book — the  first  being  the  study  of  its 
thought  and  emotion;  the  second  only  that  of  its 
workmanship.  A  student  of  literature  should 
study  some  of  the  Bible  from  both  points  of  view. 
In  attempting  the  former  method  he  will  do  well 
to  consider  many  works  of  criticism,  but  for  the 
study  of  the  text  as  literature,  his  duty  is  very  plain 
— the  King  James  version  is  the  only  one  that 
ought  to  form  the  basis  of  his  study,  though  he 


104  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

should  look  at  the  Douai  version  occasionally.  Also 
he  should  have  a  book  of  references,  such  as  Cru- 
den's  Concordance,  by  help  of  which  he  can  collect 
together  in  a  few  moments  all  the  texts  upon  any 
particular  subject,  such  as  the  sea,  the  wind,  the 
sky,  human  life,  the  shadows  of  evening.  The 
study  of  the  Bible  is  not  one  which  I  should  rec- 
ommend to  very  young  Japanese  students,  because 
of  the  quaintness  of  the  English.  Before  a  good 
knowledge  of  English  forms  is  obtained,  the 
archaisms  are  apt  to  affect  the  students'  mode  of 
expression.  But  for  the  advanced  student  of  lit- 
erature, I  should  say  that  some  knowledge  of  the 
finest  books  in  the  Bible  is  simply  indispensable. 
The  important  books  to  read  are  not  many.  But 
one  should  read  at  least  the  books  of  Genesis, 
Exodus,  Ruth,  Esther,  the  Song  of  Songs,  Prov- 
erbs,— and,  above  all.  Job.  Job  is  certainly  the 
grandest  book  in  the  Bible;  but  all  of  those  which 
I  have  named  are  books  that  have  inspired  poets 
and  writers  in  all  departments  of  English  litera- 
ture to  such  an  extent  that  you  can  scarcely  read  a 
masterpiece  in  which  there  is  not  some  conscious 
or  unconscious  reference  to  them.  Another  book 
of  philosophical  importance  is  Ecclesiastes,  where, 
in  addition  to  much  proverbial  wisdom,  you  will 
find  some  admirable  world-poetry — that  is,  po- 
etry which  contains  universal  truth  about  human 
life  in  all  times  and  all  ages.  Of  the  historical 
books  and  the  law  books  I  do  not  think  that  it  is 


THE  BIBLE  105 

important  to  read  much;  the  literary  element  in 
these  is  not  so  pronounced.  It  is  otherwise  with 
the  prophetic  books,  but  here  in  order  to  obtain 
a  few  jewels  of  expression,  you  have  to  read  a 
great  deal  that  is  of  little  value.  Of  the  New 
Testament  there  is  very  little  equal  to  the  Old  in 
literary  value;  indeed,  I  should  recommend  the 
reading  only  of  the  closing  book — the  book  called 
the  Revelation,  or  the  Apocalypse,  from  which  we 
have  derived  a  literary  adjective  "apocalyptic," 
to  describe  something  at  once  very  terrible  and 
very  grand.  Whether  one  understands  the  mean- 
ing of  this  mysterious  text  makes  very  little  differ- 
ence; the  sonority  and  the  beauty  of  its  sentences, 
together  with  the  tremendous  character  of  its  im- 
agery, can  not  but  powerfully  influence  mind  and 
ear,  and  thus  stimulate  literary  taste.  At  least 
two  of  the  great  prose  writers  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  Carlyle  and  Ruskin,  have  been  vividly  in- 
fluenced by  the  book  of  the  Revelation.  Every 
period  of  English  literature  shows  some  influence 
of  Bible  study,  even  from  the  old  Anglo-Saxon 
days;  and  during  the  present  year,  the  study  has 
so  little  slackened  that  one  constantly  sees  an- 
nouncements of  new  works  upon  the  literary  ele- 
ments of  the  Bible.  Perhaps  one  of  the  best  is 
Professor  Moulton's  "Modern  Reader's  Bible," 
in  which  the  literary  side  of  the  subject  receives 
better  consideration  than  in  any  other  work  of  the 
kind  published  for  general  use. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE    "hAVAMAL" 

OLD   NORTHERN   ETHICS   OF   LIFE 

Then  from  his  lips  in  music  rolled 
The  Havamal  of  Odin  old, 
With  sounds  mysterious  as  the  roar 
Of  billows  on  a  distant  shore. 

Perhaps  many  of  you  who  read  this  little  verse 
in  Longfellow's  "Saga  of  King  Olaf"  have  wished 
to  know  what  was  this  wonderful  song  that  the 
ghost  of  the  god  sang  to  the  king.  I  am  afraid 
that  you  would  be  very  disappointed  in  some 
respects  by  the  "Havamal."  There  is  indeed  a 
magical  song  in  it;  and  it  is  this  magical 
song  especially  that  Longfellow  refers  to,  a 
song  of  charms.  But  most  of  the  "Havamal" 
is  a  collection  of  ethical  teaching.  All  that  has 
been  preserved  by  it  has  been  published  and  trans- 
lated by  Professors  Vigfusson  and  Powell.  It  is 
very  old — perhaps  the  oldest  Northern  literature 
that  we  have.  1  am  going  to  attempt  a  short  lec- 
ture upon  it,  because  it  is  very  closely  related  to 
the  subject  of  Northern  character,  and  will  help 
us,  perhaps  better  than  almost  anything  else,  to 
understand  how  the  ancestors  of  the  English  felt 

io6 


THE  "  HAVAMAL  "  107 

and  thought  before  they  became  Christians.  Nor 
is  this  all,  I  venture  to  say  that  the  character  of 
the  modern  English  people  still  retains  much  more 
of  the  quality  indicated  by  the  "Havamal"  than 
of  the  quality  implied  by  Christianity.  The  old 
Northern  gods  are  not  dead;  they  rule  a  very 
great  part  of  the  world  to-day. 

The  proverbial  philosophy  of  a  people  helps  us 
to  understand  more  about  them  than  any  other 
kind  of  literature.  And  this  sort  of  literature  is 
certainly  among  the  oldest.  It  represents  only 
the  result  of  human  experience  in  society,  the  wis- 
dom that  men  get  by  contact  with  each  other,  the 
results  of  familiarity  with  right  and  wrong.  By 
studying  the  proverbs  of  a  people,  you  can  al- 
ways make  a  very  good  guess  as  to  whether  you 
could  live  comfortably  among  them  or  not. 

Froude,  in  one  of  his  sketches  of  travel  in  Nor- 
way, made  the  excellent  observation  that  if  we 
could  suddenly  go  back  to  the  time  of  the  terrible 
sea-kings,  if  we  could  revisit  to-day  the  homes  of 
the  old  Northern  pirates,  and  find  them  exactly  as 
they  were  one  thousand  or  fifteen  hundred  years 
ago,  we  should  find  them  very  much  like  the  mod- 
ern Englishmen — big,  simple,  silent  men,  conceal- 
ing a  great  deal  of  shrewdness  under  an  aspect  of 
simplicity.  The  teachings  of  the  "Havamal"  give 
great  force  to  this  supposition.  The  book  must 
have  been  known  in  some  form  to  the  early  Eng- 
lish— or  at  least  the  verses  composing  it  (it  is  all 


io8  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

written  in  verse)  ;  and  as  I  have  already  said,  the 
morals  of  the  old  English,  as  well  as  their  char- 
acter, differed  very  little  from  those  of  the  men 
of  the  still  further  North,  with  whom  they  mingled 
and  intermarried  freely,  both  before  and  after  the 
Danish  conquest,  when  for  one  moment  England 
and  Sweden  were  one  kingdom. 

Of  course  you  must  remember  that  Northern 
society  was  a  very  terrible  thing  in  some  ways. 
Every  man  carried  his  life  in  his  hands;  every 
farmer  kept  sword  and  spear  at  his  side  even  in 
his  own  fields;  and  every  man  expected  to  die 
fighting.  In  fact,  among  the  men  of  the  more  sav- 
age North — the  men  of  Norway  in  especial — it 
was  considered  a  great  disgrace  to  die  of  sickness, 
to  die  on  one's  bed.  That  was  not  to  die  like  a 
man.  Men  would  go  out  and  get  themselves 
killed,  when  they  felt  old  age  or  sickness  coming 
on.  But  these  facts  must  not  blind  us  to  the  other 
fact  that  there  was  even  in  that  society  a  great 
force  of  moral  cohesion,  and  sound  principles  of 
morality.  If  there  had  not  been,  it  could  not  have 
existed;  much  less  could  the  people  who  lived  un- 
der it  have  become  the  masters  of  a  great  part  of 
the  world,  which  they  are  at  the  present  day. 
There  was,  in  spite  of  all  that  fierceness,  much 
kindness  and  good  nature  among  them;  there  were 
rules  of  conduct  such  as  no  man  could  find  fault 
with — rules  which  still  govern  English  society  to 
some  extent.     And  there  was  opportunity  enough 


THE  "HAVAMAL"  109 

for  social  amusement,  social  enjoyment,  and  the 
winning  of  public  esteem  by  a  noble  life. 

Still,  even  in  the  "Havamal,"  one  is  occasion- 
ally startled  by  teachings  which  show  the  darker 
side  of  Northern  life,  a  life  of  perpetual  vendetta. 
As  in  old  Japan,  no  man  could  live  under  the  same 
heaven  with  the  murderer  of  his  brother  or 
father;  vengeance  was  a  duty  even  in  the  case 
of  a  friend.  On  the  subject  of  enemies  the  "Hav- 
amal" gives  not  a  little  curious  advice : 

A  man  should  never  step  a  foot  beyond  his  weapons; 
for  he  can  never  tell  where,  on  his  path  without,  he  may 
need  his  spear. 

A  man,  before  he  goes  into  a  house,  should  look  to  and 
espy  all  the  doorways  (so  that  he  can  find  his  way  out 
quickly  again ) ,  for  he  can  never  know  where  foes  may  be 
sitting  in  another  man's  house. 

Does  not  this  remind  us  of  the  Japanese  prov- 
erb that  everybody  has  three  enemies  outside  of 
his  own  door?  But  the  meaning  of  the  "Hava- 
mal" teaching  is  much  more  sinister.  And  when 
the  man  goes  into  the  house,  he  is  still  told  to  be 
extremely  watchful — to  keep  his  ears  and  eyes 
open  so  that  he  may  not  be  taken  by  surprise : 

The  wary  guest  keeps  watchful  silence;  he  listens  with 
his  ears  and  peers  about  with  his  eyes ;  thus  does  every  wise 
man  look  about  him. 

One  would  think  that  men  must  have  had  very 
strong  nerves  to  take  comfort  under  such  circum- 


no  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

stances,  but  the  poet  tells  us  that  the  man  who  can 
enjoy  nothing  must  be  both  a  coward  and  a  fool. 
Although  a  man  was  to  keep  watch  to  protect  his 
life,  that  was  not  a  reason  why  he  should  be  afraid 
of  losing  it.  There  were  but  three  things  of  which 
a  man  should  be  particularly  afraid.  The  first 
was  drink — because  drink  often  caused  a  man  to 
lose  control  of  his  temper;  the  second  was  another 
man's  wife — repeatedly  the  reader  is  warned 
never  to  make  love  to  another  man's  wife;  and 
the  third  was  thieves — men  who  would  pretend 
friendship  for  the  purpose  of  killing  and  stealing. 
The  man  who  could  keep  constant  watch  over 
himself  and  his  surroundings  was,  of  course,  likely 
to  have  the  longest  life. 

Now  in  all  countries  there  is  a  great  deal  of  eth- 
ical teaching,  and  always  has  been,  on  the  subject 
of  speech.  The  "Havamal"  is  full  of  teaching  on 
this  subject — the  necessity  of  silence,  the  danger 
and  the  folly  of  reckless  talk.  You  all  know  the 
Japanese  proverb  that  "the  mouth  is  the  front  gate 
of  all  misfortune."  The  Norse  poet  puts  the  same 
truth  into  a  grimmer  shape:  "The  tongue  works 
death  to  the  head."  Here  are  a  number  of  say- 
ings on  this  subject: 

He  that  is  never  silent  talks  much  folly;  a  glib  tongue, 
unless  it  be  bridled,  will  often  talk  a  man  into  trouble. 

Do  not  speak  three  angry  words  with  a  worse  man ;  for 
often  the  better  man  falls  by  the  worse  man's  sword. 

Smile  thou  in  the  face  of  the  man  thou  trustest  not,  and 
speak  against  thy  mind. 


THE  "HAVAMAL"  in 

This  is  of  course  a  teaching  of  cunning;  but  it 
is  the  teaching,  however  immoral,  that  rules  in 
English  society  to-day.  In  the  old  Norse,  how- 
ever, there  were  many  reasons  for  avoiding  a 
quarrel  whenever  possible — reasons  which  must 
have  existed  also  in  feudal  Japan.  A  man  might 
not  care  about  losing  his  own  life;  but  he  had  to 
be  careful  not  to  stir  up  a  feud  that  might  go  on 
for  a  hundred  years.  Although  there  was  a  great 
deal  of  kilhng,  killing  always  remained  a  serious 
matter,  because  for  every  killing  there  had  to  be 
a  vengeance.  It  is  true  that  the  law  exonerated 
the  man  who  killed  another,  if  he  paid  a  certain 
blood-price;  murder  was  not  legally  considered  an 
unpardonable  crime.  But  the  family  of  the  dead 
man  would  very  seldom  be  satisfied  with  a  pay- 
ment; they  would  want  blood  for  blood.  Ac- 
cordingly men  had  to  be  very  cautious  about 
quarreling,  however  brave  they  might  person- 
ally be. 

But  all  this  caution  about  silence  and  about 
watchfulness  did  not  mean  that  a  man  should  be 
unable  to  speak  to  the  purpose  when  speech  was 
required.  "A  wise  man,"  says  the  "Havamal," 
"should  be  able  both  to  ask  and  to  answer." 
There  is  a  proverb  which  you  know,  to  the  effect 
that  you  can  not  shut  the  door  upon  another  man's 
mouth.  So  says  the  Norse  poet:  "The  sons  of 
men  can  keep  silence  about  nothing  that  passes 
among  men;  therefore  a  man  should  be  able  to 
take  his  own  part,  prudently  and  strongly."    Says 


112  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

the  "Havamal" :  "A  fool  thinks  he  knows  every- 
thing if  he  sits  snug  in  his  little  corner;  but  he  is 
at  a  loss  for  words  if  the  people  put  to  him  a 
question."  Elsewhere  it  is  said:  "Arch  dunce  is 
he  who  can  speak  nought,  for  that  is  the  mark  of 
a  fool."  And  the  sum  of  all  this  teaching  about 
the  tongue  is  that  men  should  never  speak  without 
good  reason,  and  then  should  speak  to  the  point 
strongly  and  wisely. 

On  the  subject  of  fools  there  is  a  great  deal  in 
the  "Havamal";  but  you  must  understand  always 
by  the  word  fool,  in  the  Northern  sense,  a  man  of 
weak  character  who  knows  not  what  to  do  in  time 
of  difficulty.  That  was  a  fool  among  those  men, 
and  a  dangerous  fool;  for  in  such  a  state  of  society 
mistakes  in  act  or  in  speech  might  reach  to  terrible 
consequences.  See  these  little  observations  about 
fools : 

Open-handed,  bold-hearted  men  live  most  happily,  they 
never  feel  care;  but  a  fool  troubles  himself  about  every- 
thing.   The  niggard  pines  for  gifts. 

A  fool  is  awake  all  night,  worrying  about  everything; 
when  the  morning  comes  he  is  worn  out,  and  all  his  trou- 
bles are  just  the  same  as  before. 

A  fool  thinks  that  all  who  smile  upon  him  are  his 
friends,  not  knowing,  when  he  is  with  wise  men,  who 
there  may  be  plotting  against  him. 

If  a  fool  gets  a  drink,  all  his  mind  is  immediately  dis- 
played. 

But  it  was  not  considered  right  for  a  man  not 


THE  "HAVAMAL"  113 

to  drink,  although  drink  was  a  dangerous  thing. 
On  the  contrary,  not  to  drink  would  have  been 
thought  a  mark  of  cowardice  and  of  incapacity  for 
self-control.  A  man  was  expected  even  to  get 
drunk  If  necessary,  and  to  keep  his  tongue  and  his 
temper  no  matter  how  much  he  drank.  The 
strong  character  would  only  become  more  cautious 
and  more  silent  under  the  influence  of  drink;  the 
weak  man  would  immediately  show  his  weakness. 
I  am  told  the  curious  fact  that  in  the  English  army 
at  the  present  day  oflicers  are  expected  to  act  very 
much  after  the  teaching  of  the  old  Norse  poet;  a 
man  is  expected  to  be  able  on  occasion  to  drink  a 
considerable  amount  of  wine  or  spirits  without 
showing  the  effects  of  It,  either  in  his  conduct  or 
In  his  speech.  "Drink  thy  share  of  mead;  speak 
fair  or  not  at  all" — that  was  the  old  text,  and  a 
very  sensible  one  In  Its  way. 

Laughter  was  also  condemned.  If  indulged  In 
without  very  good  cause.  "The  miserable  man 
whose  mind  Is  warped  laughs  at  everything,  not 
knowing  what  he  ought  to  know,  that  he  himself 
has  no  lack  of  faults."  I  need  scarcely  tell  you 
that  the  English  are  still  a  very  serious  people,  not 
disposed  to  laugh  nearly  so  much  as  are  the  men 
of  the  more  sympathetic  Latin  races.  You  will 
remember  perhaps  Lord  Chesterfield's  saying  that 
since  he  became  a  man  no  man  had  ever  seen  him 
laugh.  I  remember  about  twenty  years  ago  that 
there  was  published  by  some  Englishman  a  very 


114  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

learned  and  very  interesting  little  book,  called 
"The  Philosophy  of  Laughter,"  in  which  it  was 
gravely  asserted  that  all  laughter  was  foolish.  I 
must  acknowledge,  however,  that  no  book  ever 
made  me  laugh  more  than  the  volume  in  question. 
The  great  virtue  of  the  men  of  the  North,  ac- 
cording to  the  "Havamal,"  was  indeed  the  virtue 
which  has  given  to  the  English  race  its  present 
great  position  among  nations, — the  simplest  of  all 
virtues,  common  sense.  But  common  sense  means 
much  more  than  the  words  might  imply  to  the  Jap- 
anese students,  or  to  any  one  unfamiliar  with  Eng- 
lish idioms.  Common  sense,  or  mother-wit,  means 
natural  intelligence,  as  opposed  to,  and  independ- 
ent of,  cultivated  or  educated  Intelligence.  It 
means  inherited  knowledge;  and  inherited  knowl- 
edge may  take  even  the  form  of  genius.  It  means 
foresight.  It  means  intuitive  knowledge  of  other 
people's  character.  It  means  cunning  as  well  as 
broad  comprehension.  And  the  modern  English- 
man, in  all  times  and  in  all  countries,  trusts  espe- 
cially to  this  faculty,  which  is  very  largely  devel- 
oped in  the  race  to  which  he  belongs.  No  Eng- 
lishman believes  in  working  from  book  learning. 
He  suspects  all  theories,  philosophical  or  other. 
He  suspects  everything  new,  and  dislikes  it,  unless 
he  can  be  compelled  by  the  force  of  circumstances 
to  see  that  this  new  thing  has  advantages  over  the 
old.  Race-experience  is  what  he  invariably  de- 
pends upon,  whenever  he  can,  whether  in  India, 


THE  "HAVAMAL"  115 

In  Egypt,  or  In  Australia.  His  statesmen  do  not 
consult  historical  precedents  in  order  to  decide 
what  to  do:  they  first  learn  the  facts  as  they  are; 
then  they  depend  upon  their  own  common  sense, 
not  at  all  upon  their  university  learning  or  upon 
philosophical  theories.  And  In  the  case  of  the 
English  nation,  it  must  be  acknowledged  that  this 
instinctive  method  has  been  eminently  successful. 
When  the  "Havamal"  speaks  of  wisdom  it  means 
mother-wit,  and  nothing  else ;  Indeed,  there  was  no 
reading  or  writing  to  speak  of  In  those  times : 

No  man  can  carry  better  baggage  on  his  journey  than 
wisdom. 

There  Is  no  better  friend  than  great  common  sense. 

But  the  wise  man  should  not  show  himself  to 
be  wise  without  occasion.  He  should  remember 
that  the  majority  of  men  are  not  wise,  and  he 
should  be  careful  not  to  show  his  superiority  over 
them  unnecessarily.  Neither  should  be  despise 
men  who  do  not  happen  to  be  as  wise  as  himself: 

No  man  is  so  good  but  there  is  a  flaw  in  him,  nor  so 
bad  as  to  be  good  for  nothing. 

Middling  wise  should  every  man  be;  never  overwise. 
Those  who  know  many  things  rarely  lead  the  happiest  life. 

Middling  wise  should  every  man  be;  never  overwise. 
No  man  should  know  his  fate  beforehand ;  so  shall  he  live 
freest  from  care. 

Middling  wise  should  every  man  be,  never  too  wise.  A 
wise  man's  heart  is  seldom  glad,  if  its  owner  be  a  true  sage. 


ii6  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

This  is  the  ancient  wisdom  also  of  Solomon: 
"He  that  increases  wisdom  increases  sorrow." 
But  how  very  true  as  worldly  wisdom  these  little 
Northern  sentences  are.  That  a  man  who  knows 
a  little  of  many  things,  and  no  one  thing  perfectly, 
is  the  happiest  man — this  certainly  is  even  more 
true  to-day  than  it  was  a  thousand  years  ago. 
Spencer  has  well  observed  that  the  man  who  can 
influence  his  generation,  is  never  the  man  greatly 
in  advance  of  his  time,  but  only  the  man  who  is 
very  slightly  better  than  his  fellows.  The  man 
who  is  very  superior  is  likely  to  be  ignored  or 
disliked.  Mediocrity  can  not  help  disliking  su- 
periority; and  as  the  old  Northern  sage  declared, 
"the  average  of  men  is  but  moiety."  Moiety  does 
not  mean  necessarily  mediocrity,  but  also  that 
which  is  below  mediocrity.  What  we  call  in  Eng- 
land to-day,  as  Matthew  Arnold  called  it,  the  Phi- 
listine element,  continues  to  prove  in  our  own 
time,  to  almost  every  superior  man,  the  danger  of 
being  too  wise. 

Interesting  in  another  way,  and  altogether  more 
agreeable,  are  the  old  sayings  about  friendship: 
"Know  this,  if  thou  hast  a  trusty  friend,  go 
and  see  him  often;  because  a  road  which  is 
seldom  trod  gets  choked  with  brambles  and 
high  grass." 

Be  not  thou  the  first  to  break  off  from  thy  friend. 
Sorrow  will  eat  thy  heart  if  thou  lackest  the  friend  to 
open  thy  heart  to. 


THE  "HAVAMAL"  117 

Anything  is  better  than  to  be  false ;  he  is  no  friend  who 
only  speaks  to  please. 

Which  means,  of  course,  that  a  true  friend  is 
not  afraid  to  find  fault  with  his  friend's  course; 
Indeed,  that  is  his  solemn  duty.  But  these  teach- 
ings about  friendship  are  accompanied  with  many 
cautions;  for  one  must  be  very  careful  In  the  mak- 
ing of  friends.  The  ancient  Greeks  had  a  terrible 
proverb:  "Treat  your  friend  as  If  he  should  be- 
come some  day  your  enemy;  and  treat  your  enemy 
as  if  he  might  some  day  become  your  friend." 
This  proverb  seems  to  me  to  indicate  a  certain 
amount  of  doubt  in  human  nature.  We  do  not 
find  this  doubt  in  the  Norse  teaching,  but  on  the 
contrary,  some  very  excellent  advice.  The  first 
thing  to  remember  is  that  friendship  Is  sacred: 
"He  that  opens  his  heart  to  another  mixes  blood 
with  him."  Therefore  one  should  be  very  careful 
either  about  forming  or  about  breaking  a  friend- 
ship. 

A  man  should  be  a  friend  to  his  friend's  friend.  But 
no  man  should  be  a  friend  of  his  friend's  foe,  nor  of  his 
foe's  friend. 

A  man  should  be  a  friend  with  his  friend,  and  pay  back 
gift  with  gift;  give  back  laughter  for  laughter  (to  his 
enemies"),  and  lesing  for  lies. 

Give  and  give  back  makes  the  longest  friend.  Give  not 
overmuch  at  one  time.    Gift  always  looks  for  return. 

The  poet  also  tells  us  how  trifling  gifts  are  quite 


ii8  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

sufficient  to  make  friends  and  to  keep  them,  If 
wisely  given.  A  costly  gift  may  seem  like  a  bribe; 
a  little  gift  is  only  the  sign  of  kindly  feeling.  And 
as  a  mere  matter  of  justice,  a  costly  gift  may  be 
unkind,  for  it  puts  the  friend  under  an  obligation 
which  he  may  not  be  rich  enough  to  repay.  Re- 
peatedly we  are  told  also  that  too  much  should 
not  be  expected  of  friendship.  The  value  of  a 
friend  is  his  affection,  his  sympathy;  but  favours 
that  cost  must  always  be  returned. 

I  never  met  a  man  so  open-hearted  and  free  with  his 
food,  but  that  boon  was  boon  to  him — nor  so  generous  as 
not  to  look  for  return  if  he  had  a  chance. 

Emerson  says  almost  precisely  the  same  thing 
in  his  essay  on  friendship — showing  how  little 
human  wisdom  has  changed  in  all  the  centuries. 
Here  is  another  good  bit  of  advice  concerning 
visits : 

It  is  far  away  to  an  ill  friend,  even  though  he  live  on 
one's  road ;  but  to  a  good  friend  there  is  a  short  cut,  even 
though  he  live  far  out. 

Go  on,  be  not  a  guest  ever  in  the  same  house.  The 
welcome  becomes  wearisome  if  he  sits  too  long  at  another's 
table. 

This  means  that  we  must  not  impose  on  our 
friends;  but  there  is  a  further  caution  on  the  sub- 
ject of  eating  at  a  friend's  house.  You  must  not 
go  to  your  friend's  hause  hungry,  when  you  can 
help  it. 


THE  "HAVAMAL"  119 

A  man  should  take  his  meal  betimes,  before  he  goes  to 
his  neighbour — or  he  will  sit  and  seem  hungered  like  one 
starving,  and  have  no  power  to  talk. 

That  is  the  main  point  to  remember  in  dining 
at  another's  house,  that  you  are  not  there  only  for 
your  own  pleasure,  but  for  that  of  other  people. 
You  are  expected  to  talk;  and  you  can  not  talk  if 
you  are  very  hungry.  At  this  very  day  a  gentle- 
man makes  it  the  rule  to  do  the  same  thing.  Ac- 
cordingly we  see  that  these  rough  men  of  the 
North  must  have  had  a  good  deal  of  social  refine- 
ment— refinement  not  of  dress  or  of  speech,  but  of 
feeling.  Still,  says  the  poet,  one's  own  home  is 
the  best,  though  it  be  but  a  cottage.  "A  man  is  a 
man  in  his  own  house." 

Now  we  come  to  some  sentences  teaching  cau- 
tion, which  are  noteworthy  in  a  certain  way: 

Tell  one  man  thy  secret,  but  not  two.  What  three 
men  know,  all  the  world  knows. 

Never  let  a  bad  man  know  thy  mishaps ;  for  from  a  b?d 
man  thou  shalt  never  get  reward  for  thy  sincerity. 

I  shall  presently  give  you  some  modern  exam- 
ples in  regard  to  the  advice  concerning  bad  men. 
Another  thing  to  be  cautious  about  is  praise.  If 
you  have  to  be  careful  about  blame,  you  must  be 
very  cautious  also  about  praise. 

Praise  the  day  at  even-tide;  a  woman  at  her  burying; 
a  sword  when  it  has  been  tried ;  a  maid  when  she  is  mar- 


I20  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

ried;  ice  when  you  have  crossed  over  it;  ale  w^hen  it  is 
drunk. 

If  there  is  anything  noteworthy  in  English  char- 
acter to-day  it  is  the  exemplification  of  this  very 
kind  of  teaching.  This  is  essentially  Northern. 
The  last  people  from  whom  praise  can  be  ex- 
pected, even  for  what  is  worthy  of  all  praise,  are 
the  English.  A  new  friendship,  a  new  ideal,  a  re- 
form, a  noble  action,  a  wonderful  poet,  an  exquis- 
ite painting — any  of  these  things  will  be  admired 
and  praised  by  every  other  people  in  Europe  long 
before  you  can  get  Englishmen  to  praise.  The 
Englishman  all  this  time  is  studying,  considering, 
trying  to  find  fault.  Why  should  he  try  to  find 
fault?  So  that  he  will  not  make  any  mistakes  at 
a  later  day.  He  has  inherited  the  terrible  caution 
of  his  ancestors  in  regard  to  mistakes.  It  must  be 
granted  that  his  caution  has  saved  him  from  a 
number  of  very  serious  mistakes  that  other  na- 
tions have  made.  It  must  also  be  acknowledged 
that  he  exercises  a  fair  amount  of  moderation  in 
the  opposite  direction — this  modern  Englishman; 
he  has  learned  caution  of  another  kind,  which  his 
ancestors  taught  him.  "Power,"  says  the  "Hav- 
amal,"  "should  be  used  with  moderation ;  for  who- 
ever finds  himself  among  valiant  men  will  discover 
that  no  man  is  peerless."  And  this  is  a  very  im- 
portant thing  for  the  strong  man  to  know — that 
however  strong,  he  can  not  be  the  strongest;  his 
match  will  be  found  when  occasion  demands  it. 


THE  "HAVAMAL"  121 

Not  only  Scandinavian  but  English  rulers  have 
often  discovered  this  fact  to  their  cost.  Another 
matter  to  be  very  anxious  about  is  public  opinion. 

Chattels  die;  kinsmen  pass  away;  one  dies  oneself;  but 
I  know  something  that  never  dies — the  name  of  the  man, 
for  good  or  bad. 

Do  not  think  that  this  means  anything  religious. 
It  means  only  that  the  reputation  of  a  man  goes  to 
influence  the  good  or  ill  fortune  of  his  descend- 
ants. It  is  something  to  be  proud  of,  to  be  the  son 
of  a  good  man;  it  helps  to  success  in  life.  On  the 
other  hand,  to  have  had  a  father  of  ill  reputation 
is  a  very  serious  obstacle  to  success  of  any  kind 
in  countries  where  the  influence  of  heredity  is 
strongly  recognized. 

I  have  nearly  exhausted  the  examples  of  this 
Northern  wisdom  which  I  selected  for  you;  but 
there  are  two  subjects  which  remain  to  be  consid- 
ered. One  is  the  law  of  conduct  in  regard  to  mis- 
fortune; and  the  other  is  the  rule  of  conduct  in 
regard  to  women.  A  man  was  expected  to  keep 
up  a  brave  heart  under  any  circumstances.  These 
old  Northmen  seldom  committed  suicide;  and  I 
must  tell  you  that  all  the  talk  about  Christianity 
having  checked  the  practice  of  suicide  to  some  ex- 
tent, can  not  be  fairly  accepted  as  truth.  In  mod- 
ern England  to-day  the  suicides  average  nearly 
three  thousand  a  year;  but  making  allowance  for 
extraordinary  circumstances,   it  is  certainly  true 


122  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

that  the  Northern  races  consider  suicide  in  an  en- 
tirely different  way  from  what  the  Latin  races  do. 
There  was  very  little  suicide  among  the  men  of 
the  North,  because  every  man  considered  it  his 
duty  to  get  killed,  not  to  kill  himself;  and  to  kill 
himself  would  have  seemed  cowardly,  as  implying 
fear  of  being  killed  by  others.  In  modern  ethical 
training,  quite  apart  from  religious  considerations, 
a  man  is  taught  that  suicide  is  only  excusable  in 
case  of  shame,  or  under  such  exceptional  circum- 
stances as  have  occurred  in  the  history  of  the  In- 
dian mutiny.  At  all  events,  we  have  the  feeling 
still  strongly  manifested  in  England  that  suicide 
is  not  quite  manly;  and  this  is  certainly  due  much 
more  to  ancestral  habits  of  thinking,  which  date 
back  to  pagan  days,  than  to  Christian  doctrine. 
As  I  have  said,  the  pagan  English  would  not  com- 
mit suicide  to  escape  mere  pain.  But  the  North- 
ern people  knew  how  to  die  to  escape  shame. 
There  is  an  awful  story  in  Roman  history  about 
the  wives  and  daughters  of  the  conquered  German 
tribes,  thousands  in  number,  asking  to  be  promised 
that  their  virtue  should  be  respected,  and  all  kill- 
ing themselves  when  the  Roman  general  refused 
the  request.  No  Southern  people  of  Europe  in 
that  time  would  have  shown  such  heroism  upon 
such  a  matter.  Leaving  honour  aside,  however, 
the  old  book  tells  us  that  a  man  should  never 
despair. 


THE  "HAVAMAL"  123 

Fire,  the  sight  of  the  sun,  good  health,  and  a  blameless 
life, — these  are  the  goodliest  things  in  this  world. 

Yet  a  man  is  not  utterly  wretched,  though  he  have  bad 
health,  or  be  maimed. 

The  halt  may  ride  a  horse;  the  handless  may  drive  a 
herd ;  the  deaf  can  fight  and  do  well ;  better  be  blind  than 
buried.     A  corpse  is  good  for  naught. 

On  the  subject  of  women  there  Is  not  very  much 
in  the  book  beyond  the  usual  caution  in  regard  to 
wicked  women;  but  there  is  this  little  observation: 

Never  blame  a  woman  for  what  is  all  man's  weakness. 
Hues  charming  and  fair  may  move  the  wise  and  not  the 
dullard.  Mighty  love  turns  the  son  of  men  from  wise 
to  fool. 

This  is  shrewd,  and  it  contains  a  very  remark- 
able bit  of  esthetic  truth,  that  it  requires  a  wise 
man  to  see  certain  kinds  of  beauty,  which  a  stupid 
man  could  never  be  made  to  understand.  And, 
leaving  aside  the  subject  of  love,  what  very  good 
advice  it  is  never  to  laugh  at  a  person  for  what 
can  be  considered  a  common  failure.  In  the  same 
way  an  intelligent  man  should  learn  to  be  patient 
with  the  unintelligent,  as  the  same  poem  elsewhere 
insists. 

Now  what  is  the  general  result  of  this  little 
study,  the  general  impression  that  it  leaves  upon 
the  mind?  Certainly  we  feel  that  the  life  re- 
flected in  these  sentences  was  a  life  in  which  cau- 


124  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

tion  was  above  all  things  necessary — caution  in 
thought  and  speech  and  act,  never  ceasing,  by 
night  or  day,  during  the  whole  of  a  man's  life. 
Caution  implies  moderation.  Moderation  inevi- 
tably develops  a  certain  habit  of  justice — a  justice 
that  might  not  extend  outside  of  the  race,  but  a 
justice  that  would  be  exercised  between  man  and 
man  of  the  same  blood.  Very  much  of  English 
character  and  of  English  history  is  explained  by 
the  life  that  the  "Havamal"  portrays.  Very 
much  that  is  good;  also  very  much  that  is 
bad — not  bad  in  one  sense,  so  far  as  the  future 
of  the  race  is  concerned,  but  in  a  social  way 
certainly  not  good.  The  judgment  of  the  Eng- 
lishman by  all  other  European  peoples  is  that 
he  is  the  most  suspicious,  the  most  reserved,  the 
most  unreceptive,  the  most  unfriendly,  the  coldest 
hearted,  and  the  most  domineering  of  all  West- 
ern peoples.  Ask.  a  Frenchman,  an  Italian,  a  Ger- 
man, a  Spaniard,  even  an  American,  what  he 
thinks  about  Englishmen;  and  every  one  of  them 
will  tell  you  the  very  same  thing.  This  is  precisely 
what  the  character  of  men  would  become  who  had 
lived  for  thousands  of  years  in  the  conditions  of 
Northern  society.  But  you  would  find  upon  the 
other  hand  that  nearly  all  nations  would  speak 
highly  of  certain  other  English  qualities — energy, 
courage,  honour,  justice  (between  themselves). 
They  would  say  that  although  no  man  is  so  diffi- 
cult to  make  friends  with,  the  friendship  of  an 


THE  "HAVAMAL"  125 

Englishman  once  gained  is  more  strong  and  true 
than  any  other.  And  as  the  battle  of  life  still  con- 
tinues, and  must  continue  for  thousands  of  years 
to  come,  it  must  be  acknowledged  that  the  Eng- 
lish character  is  especially  well  fitted  for  the  strug- 
gle. Its  reserves,  its  cautions,  its  doubts,  its  sus- 
picions, its  brutality — these  have  been  for  it  in 
the  past,  and  are  still  in  the  present,  the  best  so- 
cial armour  and  panoply  of  war.  It  is  not  a 
lovable  nor  an  amiable  character;  it  is  not  even 
kindly.  The  Englishman  of  the  best  type  is  much 
more  inclined  to  be  just  than  he  is  to  be  kind, 
for  kindness  is  an  emotional  impulse,  and  the  Eng- 
lishman is  on  his  guard  against  every  kind  of  emo- 
tional impulse.  But  with  all  this,  the  character  is 
a  grand  one,  and  its  success  has  been  the  best  proof 
of  its  value. 

Now  you  will  have  observed  in  the  reading  of 
this  ancient  code  of  social  morals  that,  while  none 
of  the  teaching  is  religious,  some  of  it  is  absolutely 
immoral  from  any  religious  standpoint.  No  great 
religion  permits  us  to  speak  what  is  not  true,  and 
to  smile  in  the  face  of  an  enemy  while  pretending 
to  be  his  friend.  No  religion  teaches  that  we 
should  "pay  back  lesing  for  lies."  Neither  does  a 
religion  tell  us  that  we  should  expect  a  return  for 
every  kindness  done;  that  we  should  regard 
friendship  as  being  actuated  by  selfish  motives; 
that  we  should  never  praise  when  praise  seems  to 
be  deserved.    In  fact,  when  Sir  Walter  Scott  long 


126  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

ago  made  a  partial  translation  of  the  "Havamal," 
he  thought  himself  obliged  to  leave  out  a  number 
of  sentences  which  seemed  to  him  highly  immoral, 
and  to  apologize  for  others.  He  thought  that 
they  would  shock  English  readers  too  much. 

We  are  not  quite  so  squeamish  to-day;  and  a 
thinker  of  our  own  time  would  scarcely  deny  that 
English  society  is  very  largely  governed  at  this 
moment  by  the  same  kind  of  rules  that  Sir  Walter 
Scott  thought  to  be  so  bad.  But  here  we  need  not 
condemn  English  society  in  particular.  All  Euro- 
pean society  has  been  for  hundreds  of  years  con- 
ducting itself  upon  very  much  the  same  principles; 
for  the  reason  that  human  social  experience  has 
been  the  same  in  all  Western  countries.  I  should 
say  that  the  only  difference  between  English  so- 
ciety and  other  societies  is  that  the  hardness  of 
character  is  very  much  greater.  Let  us  go  back 
even  to  the  most  Christian  times  of  Western  so- 
cieties in  the  most  Christian  country  of  Europe, 
and  observe  whether  the  social  code  was  then  and 
there  so  very  different  from  the  social  code  of  the 
old  "Havamal."  Mr.  Spencer  observes  in  his 
"Ethics"  that,  so  far  as  the  conduct  of  life  is  con- 
cerned, religion  is  almost  nothing  and  practice  is 
everything.  We  find  this  wonderfully  exemplified 
in  a  most  remarkable  book  of  social  precepts  writ- 
ten in  the  seventeenth  century,  in  Spain,  under  the 
title  of  the  "Oraculo  Manual."  It  was  composed 
by  a  Spanish  priest,  named  Baltasar  Gracian,  who 


THE  "HAVAMAL"  127 

was  born  in  the  year  1601  and  died  in  1658;  and 
it  has  been  translated  into  nearly  all  languages. 
The  best  English  translation,  published  by  Mac- 
millan,  is  called  "The  Art  of  Worldly  Wisdom." 
It  is  even  more  admired  to-day  than  in  the  seven- 
teenth century;  and  what  it  teaches  as  to  social 
conduct  holds  as  good  to-day  of  modern  society  as 
it  did  of  society  two  hundred  years  ago.  It  is  one 
of  the  most  unpleasant  and  yet  interesting  books 
ever  published — unpleasant  because  of  the  mali- 
cious cunning  which  it  often  displays — interesting 
because  of  the  frightful  perspicacity  of  the  author. 
The  man  who  wrote  that  book  understood  the 
hearts  of  men,  especially  the  bad  side.  He  was  a 
gentleman  of  high  rank  before  he  became  a  priest, 
and  his  instinctive  shrewdness  must  have  been 
hereditary.  Religion,  this  man  would  have  said, 
teaches  the  best  possible  morals;  but  the  world  is 
not  governed  by  religion  altogether,  and  to  mix 
with  it,  we  must  act  according  to  its  dictates. 

These  dictates  remind  us  in  many  ways  of  the 
cautions  and  the  cunning  of  the  "Havamal."  The 
first  thing  enjoined  upon  a  man  both  by  the  Norse 
writer  and  by  the  Spanish  author  is  the  art  of 
silence.  Probably  this  has  been  the  result  of  so- 
cial experience  in  all  countries.  "Cautious  silence 
is  the  holy  of  holies  of  worldly  wisdom,"  says 
Gracian.  And  he  gives  many  elaborate  reasons 
for  this  statement,  not  the  least  of  which  is  the 
following:   "If  you  do  not  declare  yourself  im- 


128  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

mediately,  you  arouse  expectation,  especially  when 
the  importance  of  your  position  makes  you  the  ob- 
ject of  general  attention.     Mix  a  little  mystery 
with  everything,  and  the  very  mystery  arouses  ven- 
eration."    A  little  further  on  he  gives  us  exactly 
the  same  advice  as  did  the  "Havamal"  writer,  in 
regard  to  being  frank  with  enemies.     "Do  not," 
he  says,  "show  your  wounded  finger,  for  every- 
thing will  knock  up  against  it;  nor  complain  about 
it,  for  malice  always  aims  where  weakness  can  be 
injured.    .    .     .    Never  disclose  the  source  of  mor- 
tification or  of  joy,  if  you  wish  the  one  to  cease, 
the  other  to  endure."    About  secrets  the  Spaniard 
is  quite  as  cautious  as  the  Norseman.     He  says, 
"Especially   dangerous  •  are    secrets   entrusted    to 
friends.     He  that  communicates  his  secret  to  an- 
other makes  himself  that  other  man's  slave."    But 
after  a  great  many  such  cautions  in  regard  to  si- 
lence and  secrecy,  he  tells  us  also  that  we  must 
learn  how  to  fight  with  the  world.    You  remember 
the  advice  of  the  "Havamal"  on  this  subject,  how 
it  condemns  as  a  fool  the  man  who  can  not  answer 
a   reproach.     The   Spaniard   is,    however,    much 
more  malicious  in  his  suggestions.     He  tells  us 
that  we  must  "learn  to  know  every  man's  thumb- 
screw."    I  suppose  you  know  that  a  thumbscrew 
was  an  instrument  of  torture  used  in  old  times  to 
force   confessions    from   criminals.     This    advice 
means  nothing  less  than  that  we  should  learn  how 


THE  "HAVAMAL'*  119 

to  be  able  to  hurt  other  men's  feelings,  or  to  flatter 
other  men's  weaknesses.  "First  guess  every 
man's  ruling  passion,  appeal  to  it  by  a  word,  set 
it  in  motion  by  temptation,  and  you  will  infallibly 
give  checkmate  to  his  freedom  of  will."  The  term 
"give  checkmate"  is  taken  from  the  game  of 
chess,  and  must  here  be  understood  as  meaning  to 
overcome,  to  conquer.  A  kindred  piece  of  advice 
is  "keep  a  store  of  sarcasms,  and  know  how  to 
use  them."  Indeed  he  tells  us  that  this  is  the 
point  of  greatest  tact  in  human  intercourse. 
"Struck  by  the  slightest  word  of  this  kind,  many 
fall  away  from  the  closest  intimacy  with  superiors 
or  inferiors,  which  intimacy  could  not  be  in  the 
slightest  shaken  by  a  whole  conspiracy  of  popular 
insinuation  or  private  malevolence."  In  other 
words,  you  can  more  quickly  destroy  a  man's 
friendship  by  one  word  of  sarcasm  than  by  any 
amount  of  intrigue.  Does  not  this  read  very  much 
like  sheer  wickedness?  Certainly  it  does;  but  the 
author  would  have  told  you  that  you  must  fight  the 
wicked  with  their  own  weapons.  In  the  "Hava- 
mal"  you  will  not  find  anything  quite  so  openly 
wicked  as  that;  but  we  must  suppose  that  the 
Norsemen  knew  the  secret,  though  they  might  not 
have  put  it  into  words.  As  for  the  social  teach- 
ing, you  will  find  it  very  subtly  expressed  even  in 
the  modern  English  novels  of  George  Meredith, 
who,  by  the  way,  has  written  a  poem  in  praise  of 


130  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

sarcasm  and  ridicule.  But  let  us  now  see  what 
the  Spanish  author  has  to  tell  us  about  friendship 
and  unselfishness. 

The  shrewd  man  knows  that  others  when  they 
seek  him  do  not  seek  "him,"  but  "their  advantage 
in  him  and  by  him."  That  is  to  say,  a  shrewd  man 
does  not  believe  in  disinterested  friendship.  This 
is  much  worse  than  anything  in  the  "Havamal." 
And  it  is  diabolically  elaborated.  What  are  we 
to  say  about  such  teaching  as  the  following:  "A 
wise  man  would  rather  see  men  needing  him  than 
thanking  him.  To  keep  them  on  the  threshold 
of  hope  is  diplomatic;  to  trust  to  their  gratitude 
is  boorish;  hope  has  a  good  memory,  gratitude  a 
bad  one"?  There  is  much  more  of  this  kind;  but 
after  the  assurance  that  only  a  boorish  person 
(that  is  to  say,  an  ignorant  and  vulgar  man)  can 
believe  in  gratitude,  the  author's  opinion  of  human 
nature  needs  no  further  elucidation.  The  old 
Norseman  would  have  been  shocked  at  such  a 
statement.  But  he  might  have  approved  the  fol- 
lowing: "When  you  hear  anything  favourable, 
keep  a  tight  rein  upon  your  credulity;  if  unfavour- 
able, give  it  the  spur."  That  is  to  say,  when  you 
hear  anything  good  about  another  man,  do  not  be 
ready  to  believe  it;  but  if  you  hear  anything  bad 
about  him,  believe  as  much  of  it  as  you  can. 

I  notice  also  many  other  points  of  resemblance 
between  the  Northern  and  the  Spanish  teaching  in 
regard  to  caution.    The  "Havamal"  says  that  you 


THE  "HAVAMAL"  131 

must  not  pick  a  quarrel  with  a  worse  man  than 
yourself;  "because  the  better  man  often  falls  by 
the  worse  man's  sword."  The  Spanish  priest 
gives  a  still  shrewder  reason  for  the  same  policy. 
"Never  contend,"  he  says,  "with  a  man  who  has 
nothing  to  lose ;  for  thereby  you  enter  into  an  un- 
equal conflict.  The  other  enters  without  anxiety; 
having  lost  everything,  including  shame,  he  has  no 
further  loss  to  fear."  I  think  that  this  is  an  im- 
moral teaching,  though  a  very  prudent  one;  but  I 
need  scarcely  to  tell  you  that  it  is  still  a  principle 
in  modern  society  not  to  contend  with  a  man  who 
has  no  reputation  to  lose.  I  think  it  is  immoral, 
because  it  is  purely  selfish,  and  because  a  good  man 
ought  not  to  be  afraid  to  denounce  a  wrong  be- 
cause of  making  enemies.  Another  point,  how- 
ever, on  which  the  "Havamal"  and  the  priest 
agree,  is  more  commendable  and  interesting.  "We 
do  not  think  much  of  a  man  who  never  contradicts 
us;  that  is  no  sign  he  loves  us,  but  rather  a  sign 
that  he  loves  himself.  Original  and  out-of-the- 
way  views  are  signs  of  superior  ability." 

I  should  not  like  you  to  suppose,  however,  that 
the  whole  of  the  book  from  which  I  have  been 
quoting  is  of  the  same  character  as  the  quotations. 
There  is  excellent  advice  in  it;  and  much  kindly 
teaching  on  the  subject  of  generous  acts.  It  is  a 
book  both  good  and  bad,  and  never  stupid.  The 
same  man  who  tells  you  that  friendship  is  seldom 
unselfish,  also  declares  that  life  would  be  a  desert 


132  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

without  friends,  and  that  there  is  no  magic  like  a 
good  turn — that  is,  a  kind  act.  He  teaches  the  im- 
portance of  getting  good  will  by  honest  means,  al- 
though he  advises  us  also  to  learn  how  to  injure. 
I  am  sure  that  nobody  could  read  the  book  with- 
out benefit.  And  I  may  close  these  quotations 
from  it  with  the  following  paragraph,  which  is 
the  very  best  bit  of  counsel  that  could  be  given 
to  a  literary  student: 

Be  slow  and  sure.  Quickly  done  can  be  quickly  undone. 
To  last  an  eternity  requires  an  eternity  of  preparation. 
Only  excellence  counts.  Profound  intelligence  is  the  only 
foundation  for  immortality.  Worth  much  costs  much. 
The  precious  metals  are  the  heaviest. 

But  so  far  as  the  question  of  human  conduct  is 
concerned,  the  book  of  Gracian  is  no  more  of  a 
religious  book  than  is  the  "Havamal"  of  the 
heathen  North.  You  would  find,  were  such  a  book 
published  to-day  and  brought  up  to  the  present 
time  by  any  shrewd  writer,  that  Western  morality 
has  not  improved  in  the  least  since  the  time  before 
Christianity  was  established,  so  far  as  the  rules  of 
society  go.  Society  is  not,  and  can  not  be,  reli- 
gious, because  it  is  a  state  of  continual  warfare. 
Every  person  in  it  has  to  fight,  and  the  battle  is 
not  less  cruel  now  because  it  is  not  fought  with 
swords.  Indeed,  I  should  think  that  the  time  when 
every  man  carried  his  sword  in  society  was  a  time 
when  men  were  quite  as  kindly  and  much  more 


THE  "HAVAMAL"  133 

honest  than  they  are  now.  The  object  of  this  little 
lecture  was  to  show  you  that  the  principles  of  the 
ancient  Norse  are  really  the  principles  ruling  Eng- 
lish society  to-day;  but  1  think  you  will  be  able 
to  take  from  it  a  still  larger  meaning.  It  is  that 
not  only  one  form  of  society,  but  all  forms  of 
society,  represent  the  warfare  of  man  and  man. 
That  is  why  thinkers,  poets,  philosophers,  in  all 
ages,  have  tried  to  find  solitude,  to  keep  out  of 
the  contest,  to  devote  themselves  only  to  study  of 
the  beautiful  and  the  true.  But  the  prizes  of  life 
are  not  to  be  obtained  in  solitude,  although  the 
prizes  of  thought  can  only  there  be  won.  After 
all,  whatever  we  may  think  about  the  cruelty  and 
treachery  of  the  social  world,  it  does  great  things 
in  the  end.  It  quickens  judgment,  deepens  intelli- 
gence, enforces  the  acquisition  of  self-control,  cre- 
ates forms  of  mental  and  moral  strength  that  can 
not  fail  to  be  sometimes  of  vast  importance  to 
mankind.  But  if  you  should  ask  me  whether  it 
increases  human  happiness,  I  should  certainly  say 
"no."  The  "Havamal"  said  the  same  thing, — the 
truly  wise  man  can  not  be  happy. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

BEYOND   MAN 

It  seems  to  me  a  lecturer's  duty  to  speak  to  you 
about  any  remarkable  thought  at  this  moment  en- 
gaging the  attention  of  Western  philosophers  and 
men  of  science, — partly  because  any  such  new 
ideas  are  certain,  sooner  or  later,  to  be  reflected  in 
literature,  and  partly  because  without  a  knowl- 
edge of  them  you  might  form  incorrect  Ideas 
in  relation  to  utterances  of  any  important  philo- 
sophic character.  I  am  not  going  to  discourse 
about  Nietzsche,  though  the  title  of  this  lecture  is 
taken  from  one  of  his  books;  the  ideas  about 
which  I  am  going  to  tell  you,  you  will  not  find  in 
his  books.  It  is  most  extraordinary,  to  my  think- 
ing, that  these  ideas  never  occurred  to  him,  for  he 
was  an  eminent  man  of  science  before  writing  his 
probably  insane  books.  I  have  not  the  slightest 
sympathy  with  most  of  his  ideas;  they  seem  to  me 
misinterpretations  of  evolutional  teachings;  and  if 
not  misinterpretations,  they  are  simply  undevel- 
oped and  ill-balanced  thinking.  But  the  title  of  one 
of  his  books,  and  the  idea  which  he  tries  always 
unsuccessfully  to  explain, — that  of  a  state  above 
mankind,  a  moral  condition  "beyond  man,"  as  he 

134 


BEYOND  MAN  135 

calls  it, — that  is  worth  talking  about.  It  is  not 
nonsense  at  all,  but  fact,  and  I  think  that  I  can 
give  you  a  correct  idea  of  the  realities  in  the  case. 
Leaving  Nietzsche  entirely  alone,  then,  let  us  ask 
if  it  is  possible  to  suppose  a  condition  of  human 
existence  above  morality, — that  is  to  say,  more 
moral  than  the  most  moral  ideal  which  a  human 
brain  can  conceive?  We  may  answer,  it  is  quite 
possible,  and  it  is  not  only  possible,  but  it  has  ac- 
tually been  predicted  by  many  great  thinkers,  in- 
cluding Herbert  Spencer. 

We  have  been  brought  up  to  think  that  there 
can  be  nothing  better  than  virtue,  than  duty,  than 
strictly  following  the  precepts  of  a  good  religion. 
However,  our  ideas  of  goodness  and  of  virtue 
necessarily  imply  the  existence  of  the  opposite 
qualities.  To  do  a  good  thing  because  it  is  our 
duty  to  do  it,  implies  a  certain  amount  of  resolve, 
a  struggle  against  difficulty.  The  virtue  of  hon- 
esty is  a  term  implying  the  difficulty  of  being  per- 
fectly honest.  When  we  think  of  any  virtuous  or 
great  deed,  we  can  not  help  thinking  of  the  pain 
and  obstacles  that  have  to  be  met  with  in  perform- 
ing that  deed.  All  our  active  morality  is  a  strug- 
gle against  immorality.  And  I  think  that,  as  every 
religion  teaches,  it  must  be  granted  that  no  human 
being  has  a  perfectly  moral  nature. 

Could  a  world  exist  in  which  the  nature  of  all 
the  inhabitants  would  be  so  moral  that  the  mere 
idea  of  what  is  immoral  could  not  exist?    Let  me 


136  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

explain  my  question  more  in  detail.  Imagine  a 
society  in  which  the  idea  of  dishonesty  would  not 
exist,  because  no  person  could  be  dishonest,  a  so- 
ciety in  which  the  idea  of  unchastity  could  not 
exist,  because  no  person  could  possibly  be  un- 
chaste, a  world  in  which  no  one  could  have  any 
idea  of  envy,  ambition  or  anger,  because  such  pas- 
sions could  not  exist,  a  world  in  which  there  would 
be  no  idea  of  duty,  filial  or  parental,  because  not 
to  be  filial,  not  to  be  loving,  not  to  do  everything 
which  we  human  beings  now  call  duty,  would  be 
impossible.  In  such  a  world  ideas  of  duty  would 
be  quite  useless;  for  every  action  of  existence 
would  represent  the  constant  and  faultless  per- 
formance of  what  we  term  duty.  Moreover, 
there  would  be  no  diflliculty,  no  pain  in  such  per- 
formance; it  would  be  the  constant  and  unfailing 
pleasure  of  life.  With  us,  unfortunately,  what  is 
wrong  often  gives  pleasure;  and  what  is  good  to 
do,  commonly  causes  pain.  But  in  the  world 
which  I  am  asking  you  to  imagine  there  could  not 
be  any  wrong,  nor  any  pleasure  in  wrong-doing; 
all  the  pleasure  would  be  in  right-doing.  To  give 
a  very  simple  illustration — one  of  the  commonest 
and  most  pardonable  faults  of  young  people  is 
eating,  drinking,  or  sleeping  too  much.  But  in  our 
imaginary  world  to  eat  or  to  drink  or  to  sleep  in 
even  the  least  degree  more  than  is  necessary  could 
not  be  done;  the  constitution  of  the  race  would 
not  permit  it.     One  more  illustration.     Our  chil- 


BEYOND  MAN  137 

dren  have  to  be  educated  carefully  in  regard  to 
what  Is  right  or  wrong;  in  the  world  of  which  I  am 
speaking,  no  time  would  be  wasted  in  any  such 
education,  for  every  child  would  be  born  with  full 
knowledge  of  what  is  right  and  wrong.  Or  to 
state  the  case  in  psychological  language — I  mean 
the  language  of  scientific,  not  of  metaphysical, 
psychology — we  should  have  a  world  in  which  mo- 
rality would  have  been  transmuted  into  inherited 
instinct.  Now  again  let  me  put  the  question :  can 
we  imagine  such  a  world?  Perhaps  you  will  an- 
swer, Yes,  in  heaven — nowhere  else.  But  1  an- 
swer you  that  such  a  world  actually  exists,  and 
that  it  can  be  studied  in  almost  any  part  of  the 
East  or  of  Europe  by  a  person  of  scientific  train- 
ing. The  world  of  insects  actually  furnishes  ex- 
amples of  such  a  moral  transformation.  It  is  for 
this  reason  that  such  writers  as  Sir  John  Lubbock 
and  Herbert  Spencer  have  not  hesitated  to  say 
that  certain  kinds  of  social  insects  have  immensely 
surpassed  men,  both  in  social  and  In  ethical 
progress. 

But  that  Is  not  all  that  It  is  necessary  to  say 
here.  You  might  think  that  I  am  only  repeating 
a  kind  of  parable.  The  Important  thing  Is  the 
opinion  of  scientific  men  that  humanity  will  at 
last.  In  the  course  of  millions  of  years,  reach  the 
ethical  conditions  of  the  ants.  It  Is  only  five  or  six 
years  ago  that  some  of  these  conditions  were  es- 
tablished  by  scientific  evidence,   and   I   want  to 


138  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

speak  of  them.  They  have  a  direct  bearing  upon 
important  ethical  questions;  and  they  have  star- 
tled the  whole  moral  world,  and  set  men  thinking 
in  entirely  new  directions. 

In  order  to  explain  how  the  study  of  social  in- 
sects has  set  moralists  of  recent  years  thinking  in 
a  new  direction,  it  will  be  necessary  to  generalize 
a  great  deal  in  the  course  of  so  short  a  lecture.  It 
is  especially  the  social  conditions  of  the  ants  which 
has  inspired  these  new  ideas;  but  you  must  not 
think  that  any  one  species  of  ants  furnishes  us  with 
all  the  facts.  The  facts  have  been  arrived  at  only 
through  the  study  of  hundreds  of  different  kinds 
of  ants  by  hundreds  of  scientific  men;  and  it  is  only 
by  the  consensus  of  their  evidence  that  we  get  the 
ethical  picture  which  I  shall  try  to  outline  for  you. 
Altogether  there  are  probably  about  five  thousand 
different  species  of  ants,  and  these  different  species 
represent  many  different  stages  of  social  evolu- 
tion, from  the  most  primitive  and  savage  up  to  the 
most  highly  civilized  and  moral.  The  details  of 
the  following  picture  are  furnished  by  a  number 
of  the  highest  species  only;  that  must  not  be  for- 
gotten. Also,  I  must  remind  you  that  the  moral- 
ity of  the  ant,  by  the  necessity  of  circumstance, 
does  not  extend  beyond  the  limits  of  its  own  spe- 
cies. Impeccably  ethical  within  the  community, 
ants  carry  on  war  outside  their  own  borders;  were 
it  not  for  this,  we  might  call  them  morally  perfect 
creatures. 

Although  the  mind  of  an  ant  can  not  be  at  all 


BEYOND  MAN  139 

like  the  mind  of  the  human  being,  it  is  so  intelli- 
gent that  we  are  justified  in  trying  to  describe  its 
existence  by  a  kind  of  allegorical  comparison  with 
human  life.  Imagine,  then,  a  world  full  of 
women,  working  night  and  day, — building,  tun- 
nelling, bridging, — also  engaged  in  agriculture,  in 
horticulture,  and  in  taking  care  of  many  kinds  of 
domestic  animals.  (I  may  remark  that  ants  have 
domesticated  no  fewer  than  five  hundred  and 
eighty-four  different  kinds  of  creatures.)  This 
world  of  women  is  scrupulously  clean;  busy  as  they 
are,  all  of  them  carry  combs  and  brushes  about 
them,  and  arrange  themselves  several  times  a  day. 
In  addition  to  this  constant  work,  these  women 
have  to  take  care  of  myriads  of  children, — chil- 
dren so  delicate  that  the  slightest  change  in  the 
weather  may  kill  them.  So  the  children  have  to  be 
carried  constantly  from  one  place  to  another  in 
order  to  keep  them  warm. 

Though  this  multitude  of  workers  are  always 
gathering  food,  no  one  of  them  would  eat  or  drink 
a  single  atom  more  than  is  necessary;  and  none 
of  them  would  sleep  for  one  second  longer  than 
is  necessary.  Now  comes  a  surprising  fact,  about 
which  a  great  deal  must  be  said  later  on.  These 
women  have  no  sex.  They  are  women,  for  they 
sometimes  actually  give  birth,  as  virgins,  to  chil- 
dren; but  they  are  incapable  of  wedlock.  They 
are  more  than  vestals.  Sex  is  practically  sup- 
pressed. 

This  world  of  workers  is  protected  by  an  army 


140  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

of  soldiers.  The  soldiers  are  very  large,  very 
strong,  and  shaped  so  differently  from  the  work- 
ing females  that  they  do  not  seem  at  first  to  be- 
long to  the  same  race.  They  help  in  the  work, 
though  they  are  not  able  to  help  in  some  delicate 
kinds  of  work — they  are  too  clumsy  and  strong. 
Now  comes  the  second  astonishing  fact:  these  sol- 
diers are  all  women — amazons,  we  might  call 
them;  but  they  are  sexless  women.  In  these  also 
sex  has  been  suppressed. 

You  ask,  where  do  the  children  come  from? 
Most  of  the  children  are  born  of  special  mothers 
— females  chosen  for  the  purpose  of  bearing  off- 
spring, and  not  allowed  to  do  anything  else.  They 
are  treated  almost  like  empresses,  being  constantly 
fed  and  attended  and  served,  and  being  lodged  in 
the  best  way  possible.  Only  these  can  eat  and 
drink  at  all  times — they  must  do  so  for  the  sake 
of  their  offspring.  They  are  not  suffered  to  go 
out,  unless  strongly  attended,  and  they  are  not 
allowed  to  run  any  risk  of  danger  or  of  injury. 
The  life  of  the  whole  race  circles  about  them 
and  about  their  children,  but  they  are  very 
few. 

Last  of  all  are  the  males,  the  men.  One  natu- 
rally asks  why  females  should  have  been  special- 
ized into  soldiers  instead  of  men.  It  appears  that 
the  females  have  more  reserve  force,  and  all  the 
force  that  might  have  been  utilized  in  the  giving 
of  life  has  been  diverted  to  the  making  of  ag- 


BEYOND  MAN  141 

gressive  powers.  The  real  males  are  very  small 
and  weak.  They  appear  to  be  treated  with  indif- 
ference and  contempt.  They  are  suffered  to  be- 
come the  bridegrooms  of  one  night,  after  which 
they  die  very  quickly.  By  contrast,  the  lives  of 
the  rest  are  very  long.  Ants  live  for  at  least  three 
or  four  years,  but  the  males  live  only  long  enough 
to  perform  their  solitary  function. 

In  the  foregoing  little   fantasy,  the  one  thing 
that  should  have  most  impressed  you  is  the  fact  of 
the  suppression  of  sex.     But  now  comes  the  last 
and  most  astonishing  fact  of  all:  this  suppression 
of  sex  is  not  natural,  but  artificial — I  mean  that  it 
is  voluntary.    It  has  been  discovered  that  ants  are 
able,  by  a  systematic  method  of  nourishment,  to 
suppress  or  develop  sex  as  they  please.    The  race 
has  decided  that  sex  shall  not  be  allowed  to  exist 
except  in  just  so  far  as  it  is  absolutely  necessary 
to  the  existence  of  the  race.     Individuals  with  sex 
are  tolerated  only  as  necessary  evils.     Here  is  an 
instance  of  the  most  powerful  of  all  passions  vol- 
untarily suppressed  for  the  benefit  of  the  com- 
munity at  large.     It  vanishes  whenever  unneces- 
sary; when  necessary  after  a  war  or  a  calamity  of 
some  kind,  it  is  called  into  existence  again.     Cer- 
tainly it  is  not  wonderful  that  such  a  fact  should 
have  set  moralists  thinking.    Of  course  if  a  human 
community  could  discover  some  secret  way  of  ef- 
fecting the  same  object,  and  could  have  the  cour- 
age to  do  it,  or  rather  the  unselfishness  to  do  it, 


142  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

the  result  would  simply  be  that  sexual  immorality 
of  any  kind  would  become  practically  impossible. 
The  very  idea  of  such  immorality  would  cease 
to  exist. 

But  that  is  only  one  fact  of  self-suppression, 
and  the  ant-world  furnishes  hundreds.  To  state 
the  whole  thing  in  the  simplest  possible  way,  let 
me  say  the  race  has  entirely  got  rid  of  everything 
that  we  call  a  selfish  impulse.  Even  hunger  and 
thirst  allow  of  no  selfish  gratification.  The  entire 
life  of  the  community  is  devoted  to  the  common 
good  and  to  mutual  help  and  to  the  care  of  the 
young.  Spencer  says  it  is  impossible  to  imagine 
that  an  ant  has  a  sense  of  duty  like  our  own, — a 
religion,  if  you  like.  But  it  does  not  need  a  sense 
of  duty,  it  does  not  need  religion.  Its  life  is  re- 
ligion in  the  practical  sense.  Probably  millions  of 
years  ago  the  ant  had  feelings  much  more  like  our 
own  than  it  has  now.  At  that  time,  to  perform 
altruistic  actions  may  have  been  painful  to  the  ant; 
to  perform  them  now  has  become  the  one  pleas- 
ure of  its  existence.  In  order  to  bring  up  children 
and  serve  the  state  more  efficiently  these  insects 
have  sacrificed  their  sex  and  every  appetite  that 
we  call  by  the  name  of  animal  passion.  Moreover 
they  have  a  perfect  community,  a  society  in  which 
nobody  could  think  of  property,  except  as  a  state 
affair,  a  public  thing,  or  as  the  Romans  would  say, 
a  res  publica.  In  a  human  community  so  organ- 
ized, there  could  not  be  ambition,  any  jealousy, 


BEYOND  MAN  143 

any  selfish  conduct  of  any  sort — indeed,  no  selfish- 
ness at  all.  The  individual  is  said  to  be  practi- 
cally sacrificed  for  the  sake  of  the  race;  but  such 
a  supposition  means  the  highest  moral  altruism. 
Therefore  thinkers  have  to  ask,  "Will  man  ever 
rise  to  something  like  the  condition  of  ants?" 

Herbert  Spencer  says  that  such  is  the  evident 
tendency.  He  does  not  say,  nor  is  it  at  all  prob- 
able, that  there  will  be  in  future  humanity  such 
physiological  specialization  as  would  correspond 
to  the  suppression  of  sex  among  ants,  or  to  the 
bringing  of  women  to  the  dominant  place  in  the 
human  world,  and  the  masculine  sex  to  an  inferior 
position.  That  is  not  likely  ever  to  happen,  for 
reasons  which  it  would  take  very  much  too  long 
to  speak  of  now.  But  there  is  evidence  that  the 
most  selfish  of  all  human  passions  will  eventually 
be  brought  under  control — under  such  control  that 
the  present  cause  of  wellnigh  all  human  suffering, 
the  pressure  of  population,  will  be  practically  re- 
moved. And  there  is  psychological  evidence  that 
the  human  mind  will  undergo  such  changes  that 
wrong-doing,  in  the  sense  of  unkindly  action,  will 
become  almost  impossible,  and  that  the  highest 
pleasure  will  be  found  not  in  selfishness  but  In  un- 
selfishness. Of  course  there  are  thousands  of 
things  to  think  about,  suggested  by  this  discovery 
of  the  life  of  ants.  I  am  only  telling  the  more  im- 
portant ones.  What  I  have  told  you  ought  at 
least  to  suggest  that  the  idea  of  a  moral  condition 


144  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

much  higher  than  all  our  moral  conditions  of  to- 
day is  quite  possible, — that  it  is  not  an  idea  to  be 
laughed  at.  But  it  was  not  Nietzsche  who  ever 
conceived  this  possibility.  His  "Beyond  Man," 
and  the  real  and  much  to  be  hoped  for  "beyond 
man,"  are  absolutely  antagonistic  conceptions. 
When  the  ancient  Hebrew  writer  said,  thousands 
of  years  ago,  "Go  to  the  ant,  thou  sluggard,  con- 
sider her  ways,"  he  could  not  have  imagined  how 
good  his  advice  would  prove  in  the  light  of  twen- 
tieth century  science. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE   NEW   ETHICS 

Before  leaving  the  subject  of  these  latter-day  In- 
tellectual changes,  a  word  must  be  said  concerning 
the  ethical  questions  involved.  Of  course  when  a 
religious  faith  has  been  shaken  to  Its  foundation, 
it  is  natural  to  suppose  that  morals  must  have  been 
simultaneously  affected.  The  relation  of  morals 
to  literature  is  very  intimate;  and  we  must  expect 
that  any  change  of  ideas  in  the  direction  of  ethics 
would  show  themselves  in  literature.  The  drama, 
poetry,  romance,  the  novel,  all  these  are  reflec- 
tions of  moral  emotion  in  especial,  of  the  eternal 
struggle  between  good  and  evil,  as  well  as  of  the 
temporary  sentiments  concerning  right  and  wrong. 
And  every  period  of  transition  is  necessarily  ac- 
companied by  certain  tendencies  to  disintegration. 
Contemporary  literature  In  the  West  has  shown 
some  signs  of  ethical  change.  These  caused  many 
thinkers  to  predict  a  coming  period  of  demoraliza- 
tion in  literature.  But  the  alarm  was  really  quite 
needless.  These  vagaries  of  literature,  such 
as  books  questioning  the  morality  of  the 
marriage  relation,  for  example,  were  only 
repetitions   of   older  vagaries,    and   represented 

I4S 


146  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

nothing  more  than  the  temporary  agitation 
of  thought  upon  all  questions.  The  fact 
seems  to  be  that  in  spite  of  everything,  moral  feel- 
ing was  never  higher  at  any  time  in  Western  social 
history  than  it  is  at  present.  The  changes  of 
thought  have  indeed  been  very  great,  but  the 
moral  experience  of  mankind  remains  exactly  as 
valuable  as  it  was  before,  and  new  perceptions  of 
that  value  have  been  given  to  us  by  the  new 
philosophy. 

It  has  been  wisely  observed  by  the  greatest  of 
modern  thinkers  that  mankind  has  progressed 
more  rapidly  in  every  other  respect  than  in  mo- 
rality. Moral  progress  has  not  been  rapid  simply 
because  the  moral  ideal  has  always  been  kept  a 
little  in  advance  of  the  humanly  possible.  Thou- 
sands of  years  ago  the  principles  of  morality  were 
exactly  the  same  as  those  which  rule  our  hves 
to-day.  We  can  not  improve  upon  them;  we 
can  not  even  improve  upon  the  language  which 
expressed  them.  The  most  learned  of  our  poets 
could  not  make  a  more  beautiful  prayer  than  the 
prayer  which  Egyptian  mothers  taught  to  their 
little  children  in  ages  when  all  Europe  was  still  a 
land  of  savages.  The  best  of  the  moral  philos- 
ophy of  the  nineteenth  century  is  very  little  of  im- 
provement upon  the  moral  philosophy  of  ancient 
India  or  China.  If  there  is  any  improvement  at 
all,  it  is  simply  in  the  direction  of  knowledge  of 
causes  and  effects.     And  that  is  why  in  all  coun- 


THE  NEW  ETHICS  147 

tries  the  common  sense  of  mankind  universally 
condemns  any  attempt  to  interfere  with  moral 
ideas.  These  represent  the  social  experience  of 
man  for  thousands  and  thousands  of  years;  and  it 
is  not  likely  that  the  wisdom  of  any  one  individual 
can  ever  better  them.  If  bettered  at  all  it  can  not 
be  through  theory.  The  amelioration  must  be 
effected  by  future  experience  of  a  universal  kind. 
We  may  improve  every  branch  of  science,  every 
branch  of  art,  everything  else  relating  to  the  work 
of  human  heads  and  hands;  but  we  can  not  im- 
prove morals  by  invention  or  by  hypothesis.  Mor- 
als are  not  made,  but  grow. 

Yet,  as  I  have  said,  there  is  what  may  be  called 
a  new  system  of  ethics.  But  this  new  system  of 
ethics  means  nothing  more  than  a  new  way  of 
understanding  the  old  system  of  ethics.  By  the 
application  of  evolutional  science  to  the  study  of 
morals,  we  have  been  enabled  to  trace  back  the 
whole  history  of  moral  ideas  to  the  time  of  their 
earliest  inception, — to  understand  the  reasons  of 
them,  and  to  explain  them  without  the  help  of  any 
supernatural  theory.  And  the  result,  so  far  from 
diminishing  our  respect  for  the  wisdom  of  our 
ancestors,  has  immensely  increased  that  respect. 
There  is  no  single  moral  teaching  common  to  dif- 
ferent civilizations  and  different  religions  of  an 
advanced  stage  of  development  which  we  do  not 
find  to  be  eternally  true.  Let  us  try  to  study  this 
view  of  the  case  by  the  help  of  a  few  examples, 


148  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

In  early  times,  of  course,  men  obeyed  moral  In- 
struction through  religious  motives.  If  asked  why 
they  thought  it  was  wrong  to  perform  certain  ac- 
tions and  right  to  perform  others,  they  could  have 
answered  only  that  such  was  ancestral  custom  and 
that  the  gods  will  it  so.  Not  until  we  could  un- 
derstand the  laws  governing  the  evolution  of  so- 
ciety could  we  understand  the  reason  of  many 
ethical  regulations.  But  now  we  can  understand 
very  plainly  that  the  will  of  the  gods,  as  our  an- 
cestors might  have  termed  it,  represents  divine 
laws  indeed,  for  the  laws  of  ethical  evolution  are 
certainly  the  unknown  laws  shaping  all  things — 
suns,  worlds,  and  human  societies.  All  that  op- 
poses itself  to  the  operation  of  those  universal 
laws  is  what  we  have  been  accustomed  to  call  bad, 
and  everything  which  aids  the  operation  of  those 
laws  is  what  we  have  been  accustomed  to  think  of 
as  good.  The  common  crimes  condemned  by  all 
religions,  such  as  theft,  murder,  adultery,  bearing 
false  witness,  disloyalty,  all  these  are  practices 
which  directly  interfere  with  the  natural  process 
of  evolution;  and  without  understanding  why, 
men  have  from  the  earliest  times  of  real  civiliza- 
tion united  all  their  power  to  suppress  them.  I 
think  that  we  need  not  dwell  upon  the  simple 
facts;  they  will  at  once  suggest  to  you  all  that  is 
necessary  to  know.  I  shall  select  for  illustration 
only  one  less  familiar  topic,  that  of  the  ascetic 
ideal. 


THE  NEW  ETHICS  149 

A  great  many  things  which  in  times  of  lesser 
knowledge  we  imagined  to  be  superstitious  or  use- 
less, prove  to-day  on  examination  to  have  been  of 
immense  value  to  mankind.  Probably  no  super- 
stition ever  existed  which  did  not  have  some  social 
value;  and  the  most  seemingly  repulsive  or  cruel 
sometimes  turn  out  to  have  been  the  most  pre- 
cious. To  choose  one  of  these  for  illustration,  we 
must  take  one  not  confined  to  any  particular  civ- 
ilization or  religion,  but  common  to  all  human  so- 
cieties at  a  certain  period  of  their  existence;  and 
the  ascetic  ideal  best  fits  our  purpose.  From  very 
early  times,  even  from  a  time  long  preceding  any 
civilization,  we  find  men  acting  under  the  idea  that 
by  depriving  themselves  of  certain  pleasures  and 
by  subjecting  themselves  to  certain  pains  they 
could  please  the  divine  powers  and  thereby  obtain 
strength.  Probably  there  is  no  people  in  the  world 
among  whom  this  belief  has  not  had  at  some  one 
time  or  another  a  very  great  influence.  At  a  later 
time,  in  the  early  civilizations,  this  idea  would 
seem  to  have  obtained  much  larger  sway,  and  to 
have  affected  national  life  more  and  more  exten- 
sively. In  the  age  of  the  great  religions  the  idea 
reaches  its  acme,  an  acme  often  represented  by 
extravagances  of  the  most  painful  kind  and  sac- 
rifices which  strike  modern  imagination  as  fero- 
cious and  terrible.  In  Europe  asceticism  reached 
its  great  extremes  as  you  know  during  the  Middle 
Ages,  and  especially  took  the  direction  of  antag- 


150  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

onism  to  the  natural  sex-relation.  Looking  back 
to-day  to  the  centuries  in  which  celibacy  was  con- 
sidered the  most  moral  condition,  and  marriage 
was  counted  as  little  better  than  weakness,  when 
Europe  was  covered  with  thousands  of  monas- 
teries, and  when  the  best  intellects  of  the  age 
deemed  it  the  highest  duty  to  sacrifice  everything 
pleasurable  for  the  sake  of  an  imaginary  reward 
after  death,  we  can  not  but  recognize  that  we  are 
contemplating  a  period  of  religious  insanity.  Even 
in  the  architecture  of  the  time,  the  architecture 
that  Ruskin  devoted  his  splendid  talent  to  praise, 
there  is  a  grim  and  terrible  something  that  sug- 
gests madness.  Again,  the  cruelties  of  the  age 
have  an  insane  character,  the  burning  alive  of 
myriads  of  people  who  refused  to  believe  or  could 
not  believe  in  the  faith  of  their  time;  the  tortures 
used  to  extort  confessions  from  the  innocent;  the 
immolation  of  thousands  charged  with  being  wiz- 
ards or  witches;  the  extinction  of  little  centres  of 
civilization  in  the  South  of  France  and  elsewhere 
by  brutal  crusades — contemplating  all  this,  we 
seem  to  be  contemplating  not  only  madness  but 
furious  madness.  I  need  not  speak  to  you  of  the 
Crusades,  which  also  belonged  to  this  period. 
Compared  with  the  Roman  and  Greek  civilizations 
before  it,  what  a  horrible  Europe  it  was !  And  yet 
the  thinker  must  recognize  that  it  had  a  strength 
of  its  own,  a  strength  of  a  larger  kind  than  that 
of  the  preceding  civilizations.     It  may  seem  mon- 


THE  NEW  ETHICS  151 

strous  to  assert  that  all  this  cruelty  and  supersti- 
tion and  contempt  of  learning  were  absolutely 
necessary  for  the  progress  of  mankind;  and  yet 
we  must  so  accept  them  in  the  light  of  modern 
knowledge.  The  checking  of  intellectual  develop- 
ment for  hundreds  of  years  is  certainly  a  fact  that 
must  shock  us;  but  the  true  question  is  whether 
such  a  checking  had  not  become  necessary.  In- 
tellectual strength,  unless  supported  by  moral 
strength,  leads  a  people  into  the  ways  of  destruc- 
tion. Compared  with  the  men  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
the  Greeks  and  Romans  were  incomparably  supe- 
rior intellectually;  compared  with  them  morally 
they  were  very  weak.  They  had  conquered  the 
world  and  developed  all  the  arts,  these  Greeks 
and  Romans;  they  had  achieved  things  such  as 
mankind  has  never  since  been  able  to  accomplish, 
and  then,  losing  their  moral  ideal,  losing  their 
simplicity,  losing  their  faith,  they  were  utterly 
crushed  by  inferior  races  in  whom  the  principles  of 
self-denial  had  been  Intensely  developed.  And  the 
old  Instinctive  hatred  of  the  Church  for  the  arts 
and  the  letters  and  the  sciences  of  the  Greek  and 
Roman  civilizations  was  not  quite  so  much  of  a 
folly  as  we  might  be  apt  to  suppose.  The  priests 
recognized  in  a  vague  way  that  anything  like  a 
revival  of  the  older  civilizations  would  signify 
moral  ruin.  The  Renaissance  proves  that  the 
priests  were  not  wrong.  Had  the  movement  oc- 
curred  a   few  hundred  years   earlier,   the   result 


152  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

would  probably  have  been  a  universal  corruption. 
I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  the  Church  at  any  time 
was  exactly  conscious  of  what  she  was  doing;  she 
acted  blindly  under  the  influence  of  an  instinctive 
fear.  But  the  result  of  all  that  she  did  has  not 
proved  unfortunate.  What  the  Roman  and  Greek 
civilizations  had  lost  in  moral  power  was  given 
back  to  the  world  by  the  frightful  discipline  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  For  a  long  series  of  generations 
the  ascetic  Idea  was  triumphant;  and  it  became 
feeble  only  in  proportion  as  men  became  strong 
enough  to  do  without  it.  Especially  it  remodelled 
that  of  which  it  first  seemed  the  enemy,  the  fam- 
ily relation.  It  created  a  new  basis  for  society, 
founded  upon  a  new  sense  of  the  importance  to 
society  of  family  morals.  Because  this  idea,  this 
morality,  came  through  superstltution,  its  value 
is  not  thereby  in  the  least  diminished.  Supersti- 
tions often  represent  correct  guesses  at  eternal 
truth.  To-day  we  know  that  all  social  progress, 
all  national  strength,  all  national  vigour,  intellec- 
tual as  well  as  physical,  depend  essentially  upon 
the  family,  upon  the  morality  of  the  household, 
upon  the  relation  of  parents  to  children.  It  was 
this  fact  which  the  Greeks  and  Romans  forgot, 
and  lost  themselves  by  forgetting.  It  was  this 
fact  which  the  superstitious  tyranny  of  the  Middle 
Ages  had  to  teach  the  West  over  again,  and  after 
such  a  fashion  that  it  Is  not  likely  ever  to  become 
forgotten.    So  much  for  the  mental  history  of  the 


THE  NEW  ETHICS  153 

question.     Let  us  say  a  word  about  the  physical 
aspects  of  it. 

No  doubt  you  have  read  that  the  result  of 
macerating  the  body,  of  depriving  oneself  of  all 
comfort,  and  even  of  nourishing  food.  Is  not  an 
increase  of  intellectual  vigour  or  moral  power  of 
any  kind.  And  in  one  sense  this  is  true.  The  in- 
dividual who  passes  his  life  in  self-mortification 
Is  not  apt  to  improve  under  that  regime.  For  this 
reason  the  founder  of  the  greatest  of  Oriental  re- 
ligions condemned  asceticism  on  the  part  of  his 
followers,  except  within  certain  fixed  limits.  But 
the  history  of  the  changes  produced  by  a  universal 
idea  is  not  a  history  of  changes  in  the  individual, 
but  of  changes  brought  about  by  the  successive 
efforts  of  millions  of  individuals  in  the  course  of 
many  generations.  Not  in  one  lifetime  can  we 
perceive  the  measure  of  ethical  force  obtained  by 
self-control;  but  in  the  course  of  several  hundreds 
of  years  we  find  that  the  result  obtained  Is  so  large 
as  to  astonish  us.  This  result,  imperceptibly  ob- 
tained, signifies  a  great  increase  of  that  nervous 
power  upon  which  moral  power  depends;  it  means 
an  augmentation  in  strength  of  every  kind;  and 
this  augmentation  again  represents  what  we  might 
call  economy.  Just  as  there  is  a  science  of  polit- 
ical economy,  there  is  a  science  of  ethical  econ- 
omy; and  it  is  in  relation  to  such  a  science  that 
we  should  rationally  consider  the  influence  of  all 
religions  teaching  self-suppression.     So  studying, 


154  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

we  find  that  self-suppression  does  not  mean  the 
destruction  of  any  power,  but  only  the  economical 
storage  of  that  power  for  the  benefit  of  the  race. 
As  a  result,  the  highly  civilized  man  can  endure 
incomparably  more  than  the  savage,  whether  of 
moral  or  physical  strain.  Being  better  able  to 
control  himself  under  all  circumstances,  he  has  a 
great  advantage  over  the  savage. 

That  which  is  going  on  in  the  new  teaching  of 
ethics  is  really  the  substitution  of  a  rational  for 
an  emotional  morality.  But  this  does  not  mean 
that  the  value  of  the  emotional  element  in  moral- 
ity is  not  recognized.  Not  only  is  it  recognized, 
but  it  is  even  being  enlarged — enlarged,  however, 
in  a  rational  way.  For  example,  let  us  take  the 
very  emotional  virtue  of  loyalty.  Loyalty,  in  a 
rational  form,  could  not  exist  among  an  unedu- 
cated people;  it  could  only  exist  as  a  feeling,  a  sen- 
timent. In  the  primitive  state  of  society  this  sen- 
timent takes  the  force  and  the  depth  of  a  religion. 
And  the  ruler,  regarded  as  divine,  really  has  in 
relation  to  his  people  the  power  of  a  god.  Once 
that  people  becomes  educated  in  the  modern  sense, 
their  ideas  regarding  their  ruler  and  their  duties 
to  their  ruler  necessarily  undergo  modification. 
But  does  this  mean  that  the  sentiment  is  weakened 
in  the  educated  class?  I  should  say  that  this  de- 
pends very  much  upon  the  quality  of  the  individ- 
ual mind.  In  a  mind  of  small  capacity,  incapable 
of  receiving  the  higher  forms  of  thought,  it  is  very 


THE  NEW  ETHICS  155 

likely  that  the  sentiment  may  be  weakened  and 
almost  destroyed.  But  in  the  mind  of  a  real 
thinker,  a  man  of  true  culture,  the  sense  of  loyalty, 
although  changed,  is  at  the  same  time  immensely 
expanded.  In  order  to  give  a  strong  example,  I 
should  take  the  example  not  from  a  monarchical 
country  but  from  a  republican  one.  What  does 
the  President  of  the  United  States  of  America,  for 
example,  represent  to  the  American  of  the  highest 
culture?  He  appears  to  him  in  two  entirely  dif- 
ferent capacities.  First  he  appears  to  him  merely 
as  a  man,  an  ordinary  man,  with  faults  and  weak- 
nesses like  other  ordinary  men.  His  private  life  is 
apt  to  be  discussed  in  the  newspapers.  He  is  ex- 
pected to  shake  hands  with  anybody  and  with 
everybody  whom  he  meets  at  Washington;  and 
when  he  ceases  to  hold  office,  he  has  no  longer 
any  particular  distinction  from  other  Americans. 
But  as  the  President  of  the  United  States,  he  is 
also  much  more  than  a  man.  He  represents  one 
hundred  millions  of  people;  he  represents  the 
American  Constitution;  he  represents  the  great 
principles  of  human  freedom  laid  down  by  that 
Constitution;  he  represents  also  the  idea  of  Amer- 
ica, of  everything  American,  of  all  the  hopes,  in- 
terests, and  glories  of  the  nation.  Officially  he  is 
quite  as  sacred  as  a  divinity  could  be.  Millions 
would  give  their  lives  for  him  at  an  instant's  no- 
tice; and  thousands  capable  of  making  vulgar 
jokes  about  the  man  would  hotly  resent  the  least 


156  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

word  spoken  about  the  President  as  the  represen- 
tative of  America.  The  very  same  thing  exists 
in  other  Western  countries,  notwithstanding  the 
fact  that  the  lives  of  rulers  are  sometimes  at- 
tempted. England  is  a  striking  example.  The 
Queen  has  really  scarcely  any  power;  her  rule  is 
little  more  than  nominal.  Every  Englishman 
knows  that  England  is  a  monarchy  only  in  name. 
But  the  Queen  represents  to  every  Englishman 
more  than  a  woman  and  more  than  a  queen:  she 
represents  England,  English  race  feeling,  English 
love  of  country,  English  power,  English  dignity; 
she  is  a  symbol,  and  as  a  symbol  sacred.  The  sol- 
dier jokingly  calls  her  "the  Widow";  he  makes 
songs  about  her;  all  this  is  well  and  good.  But  a 
soldier  who  cursed  her  a  few  years  ago  was 
promptly  sent  to  prison  for  twenty  years.  To  sing 
a  merry  song  about  the  sovereign  as  a  woman  is  a 
right  which  English  freedom  claims;  but  to  speak 
disrespectfully  of  the  Queen,  as  England,  as  the 
government,  is  properly  regarded  as  a  crime;  be- 
cause it  proves  the  man  capable  of  it  indifferent 
to  all  his  duties  as  an  Englishman,  as  a  citizen,  as 
a  soldier.  The  spirit  of  loyalty  is  far  from  being 
lost  in  Western  countries;  it  has  only  changed  in 
character,  and  it  is  likely  to  strengthen  as  time 
goes  on. 

Broad  tolerance  in  the  matter  of  beliefs  is  nec- 
essarily a  part  of  the  new  ethics.  It  is  quite  im- 
possible in  the  present  state  of  mankind  that  all 


THE  NEW  ETHICS  157 

persons  should  be  well  educated,  ox:  that  the  great 
masses  of  a  nation  should  attain  to  the  higher 
forms  of  culture.  For  the  uneducated  a  rational 
system  of  ethics  must  long  remain  out  of  the  ques- 
tion; and  it  is  proper  that  they  should  cling  to  the 
old  emotional  forms  of  moral  teaching.  The  ob- 
servation of  Huxley  that  he  would  like  to  see  every 
unbeliever  who  could  not  get  a  reason  for  his  un- 
belief publicly  put  to  shame,  was  an  observation 
of  sound  common  sense.  It  is  only  those  whose 
knowledge  obliges  them  to  see  things  from  an- 
other standpoint  than  that  of  the  masses  who  can 
safely  claim  to  base  their  rule  of  life  upon  philo- 
sophical morality.  The  value  of  the  philosophical 
morality  happens  to  be  only  in  those  directions 
where  it  recognizes  and  supports  the  truth  taught 
by  common  morality,  which,  after  all,  is  the  safest 
guide.  Therefore  the  philosophical  moralist  will 
never  mock  or  oppose  a  belief  which  he  knov/s  to 
exercise  a  good  influence  upon  human  conduct.  He 
will  recognize  even  the  value  of  many  supersti- 
tions as  being  very  great;  and  he  will  understand 
that  any  attempt  to  suddenly  change  the  beliefs  of 
man  in  any  ethical  direction  must  be  mischievous. 
Such  changes  as  he  might  desire  will  come ;  but  they 
should  come  gradually  and  gently,  in  exact  propor- 
tion to  the  expanding  capacity  of  the  national 
mind.  Recognizing  this  probability,  several  West- 
ern countries,  notably  America,  have  attempted  to 
introduce  into  education  an  entirely  new  system 


158  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

of  ethical  teaching — ethical  teaching  in  the  broad- 
est sense,  and  in  harmony  with  the  new  philos- 
ophy. But  the  result  there  and  elsewhere  can  only 
be  that  which  I  have  said  at  the  beginning  of  this 
lecture, — namely,  the  enlargement  of  the  old 
moral  ideas,  and  the  deeper  comprehension  of 
their  value  in  all  relations  of  life. 


CHAPTER  X 

SOME   POEMS   ABOUT   INSECTS 

One  of  the  great  defects  of  English  books  printed 
in  the  last  century  is  the  want  of  an  index.  The 
importance  of  being  able  to  refer  at  once  to  any 
subject  treated  of  in  a  book  was  not  recognized 
until  the  days  when  exact  scholarship  necessitated 
indexing  of  the  most  elaborate  kind.  But  even 
now  we  constantly  find  good  books  severely  criti- 
cized because  of  this  deficiency.  All  that  I  have 
said  tends  to  show  that  even  to-day  in  Western 
countries  the  immense  importance  of  systematic 
arrangement  in  literary  collections  is  not  suffi- 
ciently recognized.  We  have,  of  course,  a  great 
many  English  anthologies, — that  is  to  say,  collec- 
tions of  the  best  typical  compositions  of  a  certain 
epoch  in  poetry  or  in  prose.  But  you  must  have 
observed  that,  in  Western  countries,  nearly  all 
such  anthologies  are  compiled  chronologically — 
not  according  to  the  subject  of  the  poems.  To  this 
general  rule  there  are  indeed  a  few  exceptions. 
There  is  a  collection  of  love  poetry  by  Watson, 
which  is  famous;  a  collection  of  child  poetry  by 
Patmore;  a  collection  of  "society  verse"  by 
Locker-Lampson ;  and  several  things  of  that  sort. 

159 


i6o  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

But  even  here  the  arrangement  is  not  of  a  special 
kind;  nor  is  it  ever  divided  according  to  the  sub- 
ject of  each  particular  poem.  I  know  that  some 
books  have  been  published  of  late  years  with  such 
titles  as  "Poems  of  the  Sea,"  "Poems  of  Nature" 
— but  these  are  of  no  literary  importance  at  all, 
and  they  are  not  compiled  by  competent  critics. 
Besides,  the  subject-heads  are  always  of  much  too 
general  a  kind.  The  French  are  far  in  advance 
of  the  English  in  the  art  of  making  anthologies; 
but  even  in  such  splendid  anthologies  as  those  of 
Crepet  and  of  Lemerre  the  arrangement  is  of  the 
most  general  kind, — chronological,  and  little 
more. 

I  was  reminded  to  tell  you  this,  because  of  sev- 
eral questions  recently  asked  me,  which  I  found  it 
impossible  to  answer.  Many  a  Japanese  student 
might  suppose  that  Western  poetry  has  its  classi- 
fied arrangements  corresponding  in  some  sort  to 
those  of  Japanese  poetry.  Perhaps  the  Germans 
have  something  of  the  kind,  but  the  English  and 
French  have  not.  Any  authority  upon  the  subject 
of  Japanese  literature  can,  I  have  been  told,  in- 
form himself  almost  immediately  as  to  all  that  has 
been  written  in  poetry  upon  a  particular  subject. 
Japanese  poetry  has  been  classified  and  sub-classi- 
fied and  double-indexed  or  even  quadruple-indexed 
after  a  manner  incomparably  more  exact  than  any- 
thing English  anthologies  can  show.  I  am  aware 
that  this  fact  is  chiefly  owing  to  the  ancient  rules 


SOME  POEMS  ABOUT  INSECTS    i6i 

about  subjects,  seasons,  contrasts,  and  harmonies, 
after  which  the  old  poets  used  to  write.  But  what- 
ever be  said  about  such  rules,  there  can.  be  no 
doubt  at  all  of  the  excellence  of  the  arrangements 
which  the  rules  produced.  It  is  greatly  to  be  re- 
gretted that  we  have  not  in  English  a  system  of 
arrangement  enabling  the  student  to  discover 
quickly  all  that  has  been  written  upon  a  particu- 
lar subject — such  as  roses,  for  example,  or  pine 
trees,  or  doves,  or  the  beauties  of  the  autumn 
season.  There  is  nobody  to  tell  you  where  to  find 
such  things;  and  as  the  whole  range  of  English 
poetry  is  so  great  that  it  takes  a  great  many  years 
even  to  glance  through  it,  a  memorized  knowledge 
of  the  subjects  is  impossible  for  the  average  man. 
J  believe  that  Macaulay  would  have  been  able  to 
remember  almost  any  reference  in  the  poetry  then 
accessible  to  scholars, — just  as  the  wonderful 
Greek  scholar  Porson  could  remember  the  exact 
place  of  any  text  in  the  whole  of  Greek  literature, 
and  even  all  the  variations  of  that  text.  But  such 
men  are  born  only  once  in  hundreds  of  years;  the 
common  memory  can  not  attempt  to  emulate  their 
feats.  And  it  is  very  difficult  at  the  present  time 
for  the  ordinary  student  of  poetry  to  tell  you  just 
how  much  has  been  written  upon  any  particular 
subject  by  the  best  English  poets. 

Now  you  will  recognize  some  difficulties  in  the 
way  of  a  lecturer  in  attempting  to  make  classifi- 
cations of  English  poetry  after  the  same  manner 


1 62  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

that  Japanese  classification  can  be  made  of  Jap- 
anese poetry.  One  must  read  enormously  merely 
to  obtain  one's  materials,  and  even  then  the  result 
is  not  to  be  thought  of  as  exhaustive.  I  am  going 
to  try  to  give  you  a  few  lectures  upon  English 
poetry  thus  classified,  but  we  must  not  expect  that 
the  lectures  will  be  authoritatively  complete.  In- 
deed, we  have  no  time  for  lectures  of  so  thorough 
a  sort.  All  that  I  can  attempt  will  be  to  give  you 
an  idea  of  the  best  things  that  English  poets  have 
thought  and  expressed  upon  certain  subjects. 

You  know  that  the  old  Greeks  wrote  a  great 
deal  of  beautiful  poetry  about  insects, — especially 
about  musical  insects,  crickets,  cicadae,  and  other 
insects  such  as  those  the  Japanese  poets  have  been 
writing  about  for  so  many  hundreds  of  years.  But 
in  modern  Western  poetry  there  is  very  little,  com- 
paratively speaking,  about  insects.  The  English 
poets  have  all  written  a  great  deal  about  birds, 
and  especially  about  singing  birds;  but  very  little 
has  been  written  upon  the  subject  of  insects — sing- 
ing insects.  One  reason  is  probably  that  the  num- 
ber of  musical  insects  in  England  is  very  small, 
perhaps  owing  to  the  climate.  American  poets 
have  written  more  about  insects  than  English  poets 
have  done,  though  their  work  is  of  a  much  less 
finished  kind.  But  this  is  because  musical  insects 
in  America  are  very  numerous.  On  the  whole,  we 
may  say  that  neither  in  English  nor  in  French 
poetry  will  you  find  much   about   the  voices  of 


SOME  POEMS  ABOUT  INSECTS    163 

crickets,  locusts,  or  cicadas.  1  could  not  even  give 
you  a  special  lecture  upon  that  subject.  We  must 
take  the  subject  "insect"  in  a  rather  general  sig- 
nification; and  if  we  do  that  we  can  edit  together 
a  nice  little  collection  of  poetical  examples. 

The  butterfly  was  regarded  by  the  Greeks  espe- 
cially as  the  emblem  of  the  soul  and  therefore  of 
immortality.  We  have  several  Greek  remains, 
picturing  the  butterfly  as  perched  upon  a  skull, 
thus  symbolizing  life  beyond  death.  And  the  met- 
amorphosis of  the  insect  is,  you  know,  very  often 
referred  to  in  Greek  philosophy.  We  might  ex- 
pect that  English  poets  would  have  considered  the 
butterfly  especially  from  this  point  of  view;  and 
we  do  have  a  few  examples.  Perhaps  the  best 
known  is  that  of  Coleridge. 

The  butterfly  the  ancient  Grecians  made 

The  soul's  fair  emblem,  and  its  only  name — 

But  of  the  soul,  escaped  the  slavish  trade 

Of  earthly  life!     For  in  this  mortal  frame 

Ours  is  the  reptile's  lot,  much  toil,  much  blame, 

Manifold  motions  making  little  speed, 

And  to  deform  and  kill  the  things  whereon  we  feed. 

The  allusion  to  the  "name"  is  of  course  to  the 
Greek  word,  psyche^  which  signifies  both  soul  and 
butterfly.  Psyche,  as  the  soul,  was  pictured  by  the 
Greeks  as  a  beautiful  girl,  with  a  somewhat  sad 
face,  and  butterfly  wings  springing  from  her 
shoulders.  Coleridge  tells  us  here  that  although 
the  Greeks  likened  the  soul  to  the  butterfly,  we 


i64  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

must  remember  what  the  butterfly  really  is, — the 
last  and  highest  state  of  insect-being — "escaped 
the  slavish  trade  of  earthly  life."  What  is  this 
so-called  slavish  trade?  It  is  the  necessity  of 
working  and  struggling  in  order  to  live — in  order 
to  obtain  food.  The  butterfly  is  not  much  of  an 
eater;  some  varieties,  indeed,  do  not  eat  at  all. 
All  the  necessity  for  eating  ended  with  the  life  of 
the  larva.  In  the  same  manner  religion  teaches 
that  the  soul  represents  the  changed  state  of  man. 
In  this  life  a  man  is  only  like  a  caterpillar;  death 
changes  him  into  a  chrysalis,  and  out  of  the  chrys- 
alis issues  the  winged  soul  which  does  not  have  to 
trouble  itself  about  such  matters  as  eating  and 
drinking.  By  the  word  "reptile"  in  this  verse,  you 
must  understand  caterpillar.  Therefore  the  poet 
speaks  of  all  our  human  work  as  manifold  mo- 
tions making  little  speed;  you  have  seen  how  many 
motions  a  caterpillar  must  make  in  order  to  go 
even  a  little  distance,  and  you  must  have  noticed 
the  manner  in  which  it  spoils  the  appearance  of 
the  plant  upon  which  it  feeds.  There  is  here  an 
allusion  to  the  strange  and  terrible  fact,  that  all 
life — and  particularly  the  life  of  man — is  main- 
tained only  by  the  destruction  of  other  life.  In 
order  to  live  we  must  kill — perhaps  only  plants, 
but  in  any  case  we  must  kill. 

Wordsworth  has  several  poems  on  butterflies, 
but  only  one  of  them  is  really  fine.  It  is  fine,  not 
because  it  suggests  any  deep  problem,  but  because 


SOME  POEMS  ABOUT  INSECTS    165 

with  absolute  simplicity  It  pictures  the  charming 
difference  of  character  in  a  little  boy  and  a  little 
girl  playing  together  in  the  fields.  The  poem  is 
addressed  to  the  butterfly. 

Stay  near  me — do  not  take  thy  flight! 
A  little  longer  stay  in  sight! 
Much  converse  do  I  find  in  thee, 
Historian  of  my  infancy! 
Float  near  me;  do  not  yet  depart! 
Dead  times  revive  in  thee: 
Thou  bring'st,   gay  creature  as  thou  art! 
A  solemn  image  to  my  heart, 
My  father's  family. 

Oh !  pleasant,  pleasant  were  the  days. 
The  time,  when,  in  our  childish  plays. 
My  sister  Emmeline  and  I 
Together  chased  the  butterfly! 
A  very  hunter  did  I  rush 
Upon  the  prey:  with  leaps  and  springs 
I  followed  on  from  brake  to  bush ; 
But  she,  God  love  her,  feared  to  brush 
The  dus*  from  off  its  wings. 

What  we  call  and  what  looks  like  dust  on  the 
wings  of  a  butterfly,  English  children  are  now 
taught  to  know  as  really  beautiful  scales  or  feath- 
erlets,  but  In  Wordsworth's  time  the  real  struc- 
ture of  the  insect  was  not  so  well  known  as  now 
to  little  people.  Therefore  to  the  boy  the  col- 
oured matter  brushed  from  the  wings  would  only 
have  seemed  so  much  dust.     But  the  little  girl, 


1 66  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

with  the  instinctive  tenderness  of  the  future 
mother-soul  in  her,  dreads  to  touch  those  strangely 
delicate  wings;  she  fears,  not  only  to  spoil,  but 
also  to  hurt. 

Deeper  thoughts  than  memory  may  still  be  sug- 
gested to  English  poets  by  the  sight  of  a  butterfly, 
and  probably  will  be  for  hundreds  of  years  to 
come.  Perhaps  the  best  poem  of  a  half-metaphor- 
ical, half-philosophical  thought  about  butterflies 
is  the  beautiful  prologue  to  Browning's  "Fifine  at 
the  Fair,"  which  prologue  is  curiously  entitled 
"Amphibian" — implying  that  we  are  about  to 
have  a  reference  to  creatures  capable  of  living  in 
two  distinctive  elements,  yet  absolutely  belonging 
neither  to  the  one  nor  to  the  other.  The  poet 
swims  out  far  into  the  sea  on  a  beautiful  day;  and, 
suddenly,  looking  up,  perceives  a  beautiful  butter- 
fly flying  over  his  head,  as  if  watching  him.  The 
sight  of  the  insect  at  once  suggests  to  him  its  re- 
lation to  Greek  fancy  as  a  name  for  the  soul;  then 
he  begins  to  wonder  whether  it  might  not  really 
be  the  soul,  or  be  the  symbol  of  the  soul,  of  a  dead 
woman  who  loved  him.  From  that  point  of  the 
poem  begins  a  little  metaphysical  fantasy  about 
the  possible  condition  of  souls. 

The  fancy  I  had  to-day, 

Fancy  which  turned  a  fear! 

I  swam  far  out  in  the  bay, 

Since  waves  laughed  warm  and  clear. 


SOME  POEMS  ABOUT  INSECTS    167 

I  lay  and  looked  at  the  sun, 
The  noon-sun  looked  at  me: 
Between  us  two,  no  one 
Live  creature,  that  I  could  see. 

Yes!     There   came   floating  by 
Me,  who  lay  floating  too, 
Such  a  strange  butterfly! 
Creature  as  dear  as  new: 

Because   the  membraned  wings 
So  wonderful,  so  wide, 
So  sun-su£fused,  were  things 
Like  soul  and  nought  beside. 

So  much  for  the  conditions  of  the  poet's  revery. 
He  Is  swimming  in  the  sea ;  above  his  face,  only  a 
few  inches  away,  the  beautiful  butterfly  Is  hover- 
ing. Its  apparition  makes  him  think  of  many 
things — perhaps  first  about  the  dangerous  posi- 
tion of  the  butterfly,  for  If  It  should  only  touch 
the  water,  it  is  certain  to  be  drowned.  But  It  does 
not  touch  the  water;  and  he  begins  to  think  how 
clumsy  is  the  man  who  moves  In  water  compared 
with  the  Insect  that  moves  In  air,  and  how  ugly 
a  man  Is  by  comparison  with  the  exquisite  crea- 
ture which  the  Greeks  likened  to  the  soul  or  ghost 
of  the  man.  Thinking  about  ghosts  leads  him  at 
once  to  the  memory  of  a  certain  very  dear  ghost 
about  which  he  forthwith  begins  to  dream. 

What  if  a  certain  soul 

Which  early  slipped  its  sheath. 


1 68  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

And  has  for  its  home  the  whole 
Of  heaven,  thus  look  beneath, 

Thus  watch  one  who,  in  the  world, 
Both  lives  and  likes  life's  way, 
Nor  wishes  the  wings  unfurled 
That  sleep  in  the  worm,  they  say? 

But  sometimes  when  the  weather 
Is  blue,  and  warm  waves  tempt 
To  free  oneself  of  tether, 
And  try  a  life  exempt 

From  worldly  noise  and  dust, 
In  the  sphere  which  overbrims 
With  passion  and  thought, — why,  just 
Unable  to  fly,  one  swims! 

This  is  better  understood  by  paraphrase:  "I 
wonder  if  the  soul  of  a  certain  person,  who  lately 
died,  slipped  so  gently  out  of  the  hard  sheath  of 
the  perishable  body — I  wonder  if  she  does  not 
look  down  from  her  home  in  the  sky  upon  me, 
just  as  that  little  butterfly  is  doing  at  this  mo- 
ment. And  I  wonder  if  she  laughs  at  the  clumsi- 
ness of  this  poor  swimmer,  who  finds  it  so  much 
labour  even  to  move  through  the  water,  while  she 
can  move  through  whatever  she  pleases  by  the 
simple  act  of  wishing.  And  this  man,  strangely 
enough,  does  not  want  to  die,  and  to  become  a 
ghost.  He  likes  to  live  very  much;  he  does  not 
yet  desire  those  soul-wings  which  are  supposed  to 


SOME  POEMS  ABOUT  INSECTS   169 

be  growing  within  the  shell  of  his  body,  just  as 
the  wings  of  the  butterfly  begin  to  grow  in  the 
chrysalis.  He  does  not  want  to  die  at  all.  But 
sometimes  he  wants  to  get  away  from  the  strug- 
gle and  the  dust  of  the  city,  and  to  be  alone  with 
nature;  and  then,  in  order  to  be  perfectly  alone, 
he  swims.  He  would  like  to  fly  much  better;  but 
he  can  not.  However,  swimming  is  very  much 
like  flying,  only  the  element  of  water  is  thicker 
than  air." 

However,  more  than  the  poet's  words  is  sug- 
gested here.  We  are  really  told  that  what  a  fine 
mind  desires  is  spiritual  life,  pure  intellectual  life 
— free  from  all  the  trammels  of  bodily  necessity. 
Is  not  the  swimmer  really  a  symbol  of  the  superior 
mind  in  its  present  condition?  Your  best  swim- 
mer can  not  live  under  the  water,  neither  can  he 
rise  into  the  beautiful  blue  air.  He  can  only  keep 
his  head  in  the  air;  his  body  must  remain  in  the 
grosser  element.  Well,  a  great  thinker  and 
poet  is  ever  thus — floating  between  the  uni- 
verse of  spirit  and  the  universe  of  mat- 
ter. By  his  mind  he  belongs  to  the  region  of 
pure  mind, — the  ethereal  state;  but  the  hard  ne- 
cessity of  living  keeps  him  down  in  the  world  of 
sense  and  grossness  and  struggle.  On  the  other 
hand  the  butterfly,  freely  moving  in  a  finer  ele- 
ment, better  represents  the  state  of  spirit  or  soul. 

What  is  the  use  of  being  dissatisfied  with  na- 
ture?   The  best  we  can  do  is  to  enjoy  in  the  im- 


170  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

agination  those  things  which  it  is  not  possible  for 
us  to  enjoy  in  fact. 

Emancipate  through  passion 
And   thought,   with  sea  for  sky, 
We  substitute,  in  a  fashion, 
For  heaven — poetry: 

Which  sea,  to  all  intent, 
Gives  flesh  such  noon-disport, 
As  a  finer  element 
Affords  the  spirit-sort. 

Now  you  see  where  the  poet's  vision  of  a  beau- 
tiful butterfly  has  been  leading  his  imagination. 
The  nearest  approach  which  we  can  make  to  the 
act  of  flying,  in  the  body,  is  the  act  of  swimming. 
The  nearest  approach  that  we  can  make  to  the 
heavenly  condition,  mentally,  is  in  poetry.  Poetry, 
imagination,  the  pleasure  of  emotional  expression 
— these  represent  our  nearest  approach  to  para- 
dise. Poetry  is  the  sea  in  which  the  soul  of  man 
can  swim  even  as  butterflies  can  swim  in  the  air, 
or  happy  ghosts  swim  in  the  finer  element  of  the 
infinite  ether.  The  last  three  stanzas  of  the  poem 
are  very  suggestive : 

And  meantime,  yonder  streak 
Meets  the  horizon's  verge; 
That  is  the  land,  to  seek 
If  we  tire  or  dread  the  surge: 


SOME  POEMS  ABOUT  INSECTS    171 

Land  the  solid  and  safe — 
To  welcome  again  (confess!) 
When,  high  and  dry,  we  chafe 
The  body,  and  don  the  dress. 

Does  she  look,  pity,  wonder 
At  one  who  mimics  flight, 
Swims — heaven  above,  sea  under, 
Yet  always  earth  in  sight? 

"Streak,"  meaning  an  indistinct  line,  here  refers 
to  the  coast  far  away,  as  it  appears  to  the  swim- 
mer. It  is  just  such  a  word  as  a  good  Japanese 
painter  ought  to  appreciate  in  such  a  relation.  In 
suggesting  that  the  swimmer  Is  glad  to  return  to 
shore  again  and  get  warm,  the  poet  Is  telling  us 
that  however  much  we  may  talk  about  the  hap- 
piness of  spirits  In  heaven — however  much  we 
may  praise  heaven  In  poetry — the  truth  is  that  we 
are  very  fond  of  this  world,  we  like  comfort,  we 
like  company,  we  like  human  love  and  human 
pleasures.  There  Is  a  good  deal  of  nonsense  in 
pretending  that  we  think  heaven  Is  a  better  place 
than  the  world  to  which  we  belong.  Perhaps  it 
is  a  better  place,  but,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  we  do 
not  know  anything  about  it;  and  we  should  be 
frightened  if  we  could  go  beyond  a  certain  dis- 
tance from  the  real  world  which  we  do  know.  As 
he  tells  us  this,  the  poet  begins  again  to  think 
about  the  spirit  of  the  dead  woman.  Is  she  happy? 
Is  she  looking  at  him — and  pitying  him  as  he 


172  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

swims,  taking  good  care  not  to  go  too  far  away 
from  the  land?  Or  is  she  laughing  at  him,  be- 
cause in  his  secret  thoughts  he  confesses  that  he 
likes  to  live — that  he  does  not  want  to  become  a 
pure  ghost  at  the  present  time? 

Evidently  a  butterfly  was  quite  enough,  not  only 
to  make  Browning's  mind  think  very  seriously,  but 
to  make  that  mind  teach  us  the  truth  and  serious- 
ness which  may  attach  to  very  small  things — inci- 
dents, happenings  of  daily  life,  in  any  hour  and 
place.  I  believe  that  is  the  greatest  English  poem 
we  have  on  the  subject  of  the  butterfly. 

The  idea  that  a  butterfly  might  be,  not  merely 
the  symbol  of  the  soul,  but  in  very  fact  the  spirit 
of  a  dead  person,  is  somewhat  foreign  to  English 
thought;  and  whatever  exists  in  poetry  on  the  sub- 
ject must  necessarily  be  quite  new.  The  idea  of  a 
relation  between  insects,  birds,  or  other  living 
creatures,  and  the  spirits  of  the  dead,  is  enor- 
mously old  in  Oriental  literature; — we  find  it  in 
Sanskrit  texts  thousands  of  years  ago.  But  the 
Western  mind  has  not  been  accustomed  to  think 
of  spiritual  life  as  outside  of  man;  and  much  of 
natural  poetry  has  consequently  remained  unde- 
veloped in  Western  countries.  A  strange  little 
poem,  "The  White  Moth,"  is  an  exception  to  the 
general  rule  that  1  have  indicated;  but  I  am  almost 
certain  that  its  author,  A.  T.  Quiller-Couch,  must 
have  read  Oriental  books,  or  obtained  his  fancy 
from  some  Eastern  source.    As  the  knowledge  of 


SOME  POEMS  ABOUT  INSECTS    173 

Indian  literature  becomes  more  general  in  Eng- 
land, we  may  expect  to  find  poetry  much  influenced 
by  Oriental  ideas.  At  the  present  time,  such  a 
composition  as  this  is  quite  a  strange  anomaly. 

//  a  leaf  rustled,  she  would  start: 
And  yet  she  died,  a  year  ago. 
How  had  so  frail  a  thing  the  heart 
To  journey  where  she  trembled  sof 
And  do  they  turn  and  turn  in  fright. 
Those  little  feet,  in  so  much  night? 

The  light  above  the  poet's  head 
Streamed  on  the  page  and  on  the  cloth, 
And  twice  and  thrice  there  buffeted 
On  the  black  pane  a  white-winged  moth: 
Twas  Annie's  soul  that  beat  outside, 
And  "  Open,  open,  open !  "  cried : 

"  I  could  not  find  the  way  to  God ; 
There  were  too  many  flaming  suns 
For  signposts,  and  the  fearful  road 
Led  over  wastes  where  millions 
Of  tangled  comets  hissed  and  burned — 
I  was  bewildered  and  I  turned. 

"  Oh,  it  was  easy  then !     I  knew 
Your  window  and  no  star  beside. 
Look  up  and  take  me  back  to  you !  " 
— He  rose  and  thrust  the  window  wide. 
'Twas  but  because  his  brain  was  hot 
With  rhyming;  for  he  heard  her  not. 


174  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

But  poets  polishing  a  phrase 
Show  anger  over  trivial  things; 
And  as  she  blundered  in  the  blaze 
Towards  him,  on  ecstatic  wings, 
He  raised  a  hand  and  smote  her  dead ; 
Then  wrote  "  That  I  had  died  instead!  " 

The  lover,  or  bereaved  husband,  is  writing  a 
poem  of  which  a  part  is  given  in  the  first  stanza — 
which  is  therefore  put  in  italics.  The  action 
proper  begins  with  the  second  stanza.  The  soul 
of  the  dead  woman  taps  at  the  window  in  the  shape 
of  a  night-butterfly  or  moth — imagining,  perhaps, 
that  she  has  still  a  voice  and  can  make  herself 
heard  by  the  man  that  she  loves.  She  tells  the 
story  of  her  wandering  in  space — privileged  to 
pass  to  heaven,  yet  afraid  of  the  journey.  Now 
the  subject  of  the  poem  which  the  lover  happens 
to  be  writing  inside  the  room  is  a  memory  of  the 
dead  woman — mourning  for  her,  describing  her 
in  exquisite  ways.  He  can  not  hear  her  at  all;  he 
does  not  hear  even  the  beating  of  the  little  wings 
at  the  window,  but  he  stands  up  and  opens  the 
window — because  he  happens  to  feel  hot  and 
tired.  The  moth  thinks  that  he  has  heard  her, 
that  he  knows;  and  she  flies  toward  him  in  great 
delight.  But  he,  thinking  that  it  is  only  a  trouble- 
some insect,  kills  her  with  a  blow  of  his  hand;  and 
then  sits  down  to  continue  his  poem  with  the 
words,  "Oh,  how  I  wish  1  could  have  died  instead 


SOME  POEMS  ABOUT  INSECTS    175 

of  that  dear  woman !"  Altogether  this  is  a  queer 
poem  in  English  literature,  and  I  believe  almost 
alone  of  its  kind.  But  it  is  queer  only  because  of 
its  rarity  of  subject.  As  for  construction,  it  is 
very  good  indeed. 

I  do  not  know  that  it  is  necessary  to  quote  any 
more  poems  upon  butterflies  or  moths.  There 
are  several  others;  but  the  workmanship  and  the 
thought  are  not  good  enough  or  original  enough 
to  justify  their  use  here  as  class  texts.  So  I  shall 
now  turn  to  the  subject  of  dragon-flies.  Here  we 
must  again  be  very  brief.  References  to  dragon- 
flies  are  common  throughout  English  poetry,  but 
the  references  signify  little  more  than  a  mere  col- 
ourless mention  of  the  passing  of  the  insect.  How- 
ever, it  so  happens  that  the  finest  modern  lines  of 
pure  description  written  about  any  insect,  are 
about  dragon-flies.  And  they  also  happen  to  be 
by  Tennyson.  Naturalists  and  men  of  science 
have  greatly  praised  these  lines,  because  of  their 
truth  to  nature  and  the  accuracy  of  observation 
which  they  show.  You  will  find  them  in  the  poem 
entitled  "The  Two  Voices." 

To-day  I  saw  the  dragon-fly 

Come  from  the  wells  where  he  did  lie. 

An  inner  impulse  rent  the  veil 
Of  his  old  husk;  from  head  to  tail 
Came  out  clear  plates  of  sapphire  mail. 


176  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

He  dried  his  wings;  like  gauze  they  grew; 
Thro'  crofts  and  pastures  wet  with  dew 
A  living  rush  of  light  he  flew. 

There  are  very  few  real  poems,  however,  upon 
the  dragon-fly  in  English,  and  considering  the  ex- 
traordinary beauty  and  grace  of  the  insect,  this 
may  appear  strange  to  you.  But  I  think  that  you 
can  explain  the  strangeness  at  a  later  time.  The 
silence  of  English  poets  on  the  subject  of  insects 
as  compared  with  Japanese  poets  is  due  to  gen- 
eral causes  that  we  shall  consider  at  the  close  of 
the  lecture. 

Common  flies  could  scarcely  seem  to  be  a  sub- 
ject for  poetry — disgusting  and  annoying  crea- 
tures as  they  are.  But  there  are  more  poems 
about  the  house-fly  than  about  the  dragon-fly. 
Last  year  I  quoted  for  you  a  remarkable  and 
rather  mystical  composition  by  the  poet  Blake 
about  accidentally  killing  a  fly.  Blake  represents 
his  own  thoughts  about  the  brevity  of  human  life 
which  had  been  aroused  by  the  incident.  It  is  a 
charming  little  poem;  but  it  does  not  describe  the 
fly  at  all.  I  shall  not  quote  it  here  again,  because 
we  shall  have  many  other  things  to  talk  about; 
but  I  shall  give  you  the  text  of  a  famous  little 
composition  by  Oldys  on  the  same  topic.  It  has 
almost  the  simplicity  of  Blake, — and  certainly 
something  of  the  same  kind  of  philosophy. 

Busy,  curious,  thirsty  fly, 
Drink  with  me  and  drink  as  I; 


SOME  POEMS  ABOUT  INSECTS    177 

Freely  welcome  to  my  cup, 
Couldst  thou  sip  and  sip  it  up: 
Make  the  most  of  life  you  may, 
Life  is  short  and  wears  away. 

Both  alike  are  mine  and  thine 
Hastening  quick  to  their  decline: 
Thine's  a  summer,  mine's  no  more. 
Though  repeated  to  threescore. 
Threescore  summers,  when  they're  gone, 
Will  appear  as  short  as  one! 

The  suggestion  is  that,  after  all,  time  is  only  a 
very  relative  affair  in  the  cosmic  order  of  things. 
The  life  of  the  man  of  sixty  years  is  not  much 
longer  than  the  life  of  the  insect  which  lives  but 
a  few  hours,  days,  or  months.  Had  Oldys,  who 
belongs  to  the  eighteenth  century,  lived  in  our 
own  time,  he  might  have  been  able  to  write  some- 
thing very  much  more  curious  on  this  subject.  It 
is  now  known  that  time,  to  the  mind  of  an  insect, 
must  appear  immensely  longer  than  it  appears  to 
the  mind  of  a  man.  It  has  been  calculated  that 
a  mosquito  or  a  gnat  moves  its  wings  between  four 
and  five  hundred  times  a  second.  Now  the  scien- 
tific dissection  of  such  an  insect,  under  the  micro- 
scope, justifies  the  opinion  that  the  insect  must  be 
conscious  of  each  beat  of  the  wings — just  as  a  man 
feels  that  he  lifts  his  arm  or  bends  his  head  every 
time  that  the  action  is  performed.  A  man  can  not 
even  imagine  the  consciousness  of  so  short  an  in- 
terval of  time  as  the  five-hundredth  part  of  one 


178  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

second.  But  insect  consciousness  can  be  aware  of 
such  intervals;  and  a  single  day  of  life  might  well 
appear  to  the  gnat  as  long  as  the  period  of  a 
month  to  a  man.  Indeed,  we  have  reason  to  sup- 
pose that  to  even  the  shortest-hved  insect  life  does 
not  appear  short  at  all;  and  that  the  ephemera 
may  actually,  so  far  as  feeling  is  concerned,  live 
as  long  as  a  man — although  its  birth  and  death 
does  occur  between  the  rising  and  the  setting  of 
the  sun. 

We  might  suppose  that  bees  would  form  a  fa- 
vourite subject  of  poetry,  especially  in  countries 
where  agriculture  is  practised  upon  such  a  scale  as 
in  England.  But  such  is  not  really  the  case. 
Nearly  every  English  poet  makes  some  reference 
to  bees,  as  Tennyson  does  in  the  famous  couplet — 

The  moan  of  doves  in  immemorial  elms, 
And  murmuring  of  innumerable  bees. 

But  the  only  really  remarkable  poem  addressed 
to  a  bee  is  by  the  American  philosopher  Emerson. 
The  poem  in  question  can  not  be  compared  as  to 
mere  workmanship  with  some  others  which  I  have 
cited;  but  as  to  thinking,  it  is  very  interesting,  and 
you  must  remember  that  the  philosopher  who 
writes  poetry  should  be  judged  for  his  thought 
rather  than  for  the  measure  of  his  verse.  The 
whole  is  not  equally  good,  nor  is  it  short  enough 
to  quote  entire;  I  shall  only  give  the  best  parts. 


SOME  POEMS  ABOUT  INSECTS    179 

Burly,  dozing  humble-bee, 
Where  thou  art  is  clime  for  me. 


Zigzag  steerer,  desert  cheerer. 
Let  me  chase  thy  waving  lines; 
Keep  me  nearer,  me  thy  hearer, 
Singing  over  shrubs  and  vines. 

Insect  lover  of  the  sun, 
Joy  of  thy  dominion! 
Sailor  of  the  atmosphere; 
Swimmer  through  the  waves  of  air ; 
Voyager  of  light  and  noon; 
Epicurean  of  June; 
Wait,  I  prithee,  till  I  come 
Within  earshot  of  thy  hum, — 
All  without  is  martyrdom. 

Thou,  in  sunny  solitudes, 
Rover  of  the  underwoods. 
The  green  silence  dost  displace 
With  thy  mellow,  breezy  bass. 

Aught  unsavory  or  unclean 
Hath  my  insect  never  seen; 

Wiser  far  than  human  seer, 
Yellow-breeched  philosopher ! 
Seeing  only  what  is  fair. 
Sipping  only  what  is  sweet, 
Thou  dost  mock  at  fate  and  care, 
Leave  the  chaff,  and  take  the  wheat. 


i8o  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

This  is  really  the  poetry  of  the  bee — visiting 
only  beautiful  flowers,  and  sucking  from  them 
their  perfumed  juices — always  healthy,  happy, 
and  surrounded  by  beautiful  things.  A  great 
rover,  a  constant  wanderer  is  the  bee — visiting 
many  different  places,  seeing  many  differ- 
ent things,  but  stopping  only  to  enjoy  what 
is  beautiful  to  the  sight  and  sweet  to  the 
taste.  Now  Emerson  tells  us  that  a  wise  man 
should  act  like  the  bee — never  stopping  to 
look  at  what  is  bad,  or  what  is  morally  ugly, 
but  seeking  only  what  is  beautiful  and  nourishing 
for  the  mind.  It  is  a  very  fine  thought;  and  the 
manner  of  expressing  it  is  greatly  helped  by  Em- 
erson's use  of  curious  and  forcible  words — such  as 
"burly,"  "zigzag,"  and  the  famous  expression 
"yellow-breeched  philosopher" — which  has  passed 
almost  into  an  American  household  phrase.  The 
allusion  of  course  is  to  the  thighs  of  the  bee,  cov- 
ered with  the  yellow  pollen  of  flowers  so  as  to 
make  them  seem  covered  with  yellow  breeches,  or 
trousers  reaching  only  to  the  knees. 

I  do  not  of  course  include  in  the  lecture  such 
child  songs  about  insects  as  that  famous  one  be- 
ginning with  the  words,  "How  doth  the  little  busy 
bee  improve  each  shining  hour."  This  is  no  doubt 
didactically  very  good;  but  I  wish  to  offer  you 
only  examples  of  really  fine  poetry  on  the  topic. 
Therefore  leaving  the  subject  of  bees  for  the 
time,  let  us  turn  to  the  subject  of  musical  insects 


SOME  POEMS  ABOUT  INSECTS    i8i 

— the  singers  of  the  fields  and  woods — grasshop- 
pers and  crickets. 

In  Japanese  poetry  there  are  thousands  of 
verses  upon  such  insects.  Therefore  it  seems  very 
strange  that  we  have  scarcely  anything  on  the  sub- 
ject in  English.  And  the  little  that  we  do  have  is 
best  represented  by  the  poem  of  Keats  on  the  night 
cricket.  The  reference  is  probably  to  what  we 
call  in  England  the  hearth  cricket,  an  insect  which 
hides  in  houses,  making  itself  at  home  in  some 
chink  of  the  brickwork  or  stonework  about  a 
fireplace,  for  it  loves  the  warmth.  I  suppose  that 
the  small  number  of  poems  in  English  about  crick- 
ets can  be  partly  explained  by  the  scarcity  of  night 
singers.  Only  the  house  cricket  seems  to  be  very 
well  known.  But  on  the  other  hand,  we  can  not 
so  well  explain  the  rarity  of  composition  in  regard 
to  the  day-singers — the  grasshoppers  and  locusts 
which  can  be  heard,  though  somewhat  faintly,  in 
any  English  country  place  after  sunset  during  the 
warm  season.  Another  queer  thing  is  that  the  ex- 
ample set  by  Keats  has  not  been  imitated  or  at 
least  followed  even  up  to  the  present  time. 

The  poetry  of  earth  is  never  dead : 

When  all  the  birds  are  faint  with  the  hot  sun,  etc. 

In  this  charming  composition  you  will  have  no- 
ticed the  word  "stove" ;  but  you  must  remember 
that  this  is  not  a  stove  as  we  understand  the  term 
now,  and  signifies  only  an  old-fashioned  fireplace 


1 82  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

of  brick  or  tile.  In  Keats's  day  there  were  no  iron 
stoves.  Another  word  which  I  want  to  notice  is 
the  word  "poetry"  in  the  first  line.  By  the  poetry 
of  nature  the  poet  means  the  voices  of  nature — 
the  musical  sounds  made  by  its  idle  life  in  woods 
and  fields.  So  the  word  "poetry"  here  has  espe- 
cially the  meaning  of  song,  and  corresponds  very 
closely  to  the  Japanese  word  which  signifies  either 
poem  or  song,  but  perhaps  more  especially  the 
latter.  The  general  meaning  of  the  sonnet  is  that 
at  no  time,  either  in  winter  or  in  summer,  is  nature 
sileht.  When  the  birds  do  not  sing,  the  grasshop- 
pers make  music  for  us;  and  when  the  cold  has 
killed  or  banished  all  other  life,  then  the  house 
cricket  begins  with  its  thin  sweet  song  to  make  us 
think  of  the  dead  voices  of  the  summer. 

There  is  not  much  else  of  note  about  the  grass- 
hopper and  the  cricket  in  the  works  of  the  great 
English  poets.  But  perhaps  you  do  not  know  that 
Tennyson  in  his  youth  took  up  the  subject  and 
made  a  long  poem  upon  the  grasshopper,  but  sup- 
pressed it  after  the  edition  of  1842.  He  did  not 
think  it  good  enough  to  rank  with  his  other  work. 
But  a  few  months  ago  the  poems  which  Tennyson 
suppressed  in  the  final  edition  of  his  works  have 
been  published  and  carefully  edited  by  an  eminent 
scholar,  and  among  these  poems  we  find  "The 
Grasshopper."  I  will  quote  some  of  this  poem, 
because  it  is  beautiful,  and  because  the  fact  of  its 
suppression  will  serve  to  show  you  how  very  exact 


SOME  POEMS  ABOUT  INSECTS    183 

and  careful  Tennyson  was  to  preserve  only  the 
very  best  things  that  he  wrote. 

Voice  of  the  summer  wind, 
Joy  of  the  summer  plain, 
Life  of  the  summer  hours, 
Carol  clearly,  bound  along. 
No  Tithon  thou  as  poets  feign 
(Shame  fall  'em,  they  are  deaf  and  blind), 
But  an  insect  lithe  and  strong 
Bowing  the  seeded  summer  flowers. 
Prove  their  falsehood  and  thy  quarrel, 
Vaulting  on  thine  airy  feet 
Clap  thy  shielded  sides  and  carol, 
Carol  clearly,  chirrups  sweet. 
Thou  art  a  mailed  warrior  in  youth  and  strength 
complete ; 

Armed  cap-a-pie, 

Full  fair  to  see; 

Unknowing  fear, 

Undreading  loss, 

A  gallant  cavalier, 
Sans  peur  et  sans  reproche. 

In  sunlight  and  in  shadow, 

The  Bayard  of  the  meadow. 

The  reference  to  TIthonus  is  a  reference  of 
course  to  a  subject  afterwards  beautifully  elabo- 
rated in  another  poem  by  Tennyson,  the  great 
poem  of  "Tithonus."  The  Bayard  here  referred 
to  was  the  great  French  model  of  perfect  chivalry, 
and  is  sometimes  called  the  last  of  the  feudal 
knights.     He  was  said  to  be  without  fear  and 


1 84  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

without  blame.  You  may  remember  that  he  was 
killed  by  a  ball  from  a  gun — it  was  soon  after  the 
use  of  artillery  in  war  had  been  introduced;  and 
his  dying  words  were  to  the  effect  that  he  feared 
there  was  now  an  end  of  great  deeds,  because  men 
had  begun  to  fight  from  a  distance  with  machines 
instead  of  fighting  in  the  old  knightly  and  noble 
way  with  sword  and  spear.  The  grasshopper, 
covered  with  green  plates  and  bearing  so  many 
little  sharp  spines  upon  its  long  limbs,  seems  to 
have  suggested  to  Tennyson  the  idea  of  a  fairy 
knight  in  green  armour. 

As  1  said  before,  England  is  poor  in  singing 
insects,  while  America  is  rich  in  them — almost, 
perhaps,  as  rich  as  Japan,  although  you  will  not 
find  as  many  different  kinds  of  singing  insects  in 
any  one  state  or  district.  The  singing  insects  of 
America  are  peculiar  to  particular  localities.  But 
the  Eastern  states  have  perhaps  the  most  curious 
insect  of  this  kind.  It  is  called  the  Katydid.  This 
name  is  spelt  either  Katydid,  or  Catydid — though 
the  former  spelling  is  preferable.  Katy,  or  Katie, 
is  the  abbreviation  of  the  name  Catherine;  very 
few  girls  are  called  by  the  full  name  Catherine, 
also  spelt  Katherine;  because  the  name  is  long 
and  unmusical,  their  friends  address  them  usually 
as  Katy,  and  their  acquaintances,  as  Kate.  Well, 
the  insect  of  which  I  am  speaking,  a  kind  of  semi, 
makes  a  sound  resembling  the  sound  of  the  words 
"Katie  did!"     Hence  the  name — one  of  the  few 


SOME  POEMS  ABOUT  INSECTS    185 

corresponding  to  the  names  given  to  the  Japanese 
semi,  such  as  tsuku-tsuku-boshi,  or  minmin-semi. 
The  most  interesting  composition  upon  this  cicada 
is  by  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  but  it  is  of  the 
lighter  sort  of  verse,  with  a  touch  of  humour  in 
it.  I  shall  quote  a  few  verses  only,  as  the  piece 
contains  some  allusions  that  would  require  expla- 
nation at  considerable  length. 

I  love  to  hear  thine  earnest  voice, 

Wherever  thou  art  hid, 
Thou  testy  little  dogmatist. 

Thou  pretty  Katydid! 
Thou  mindest  me  of  gentlefolks, — 

Old  gentlefolks  are  they, — 
Thou  say'st  an  undisputed  thing 

In  such  a  solemn  way. 

Oh  tell  me  where  did  Katy  live, 

And  what  did  Katy  do? 
And  was  she  very  fair  and  young. 

And  yet  so  wicked,  too? 
Did  Katy  love  a  naughty  man, 

Or  kiss  more  cheeks  than  one? 
I  warrant  Katy  did  no  more 

Than  many  a  Kate  has  done. 

Ah,  no!     The  living  oak  shall  crash, 

That  stood  for  ages  still, 
The  rock  shall  rend  its  mossy  base 

And  thunder  down  the  hill. 


1 86  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

Before  the  little  Katydid 

Shall  add  one  word,  to  tell 
The  mystic  story  of  the  maid 

Whose  name  she  knows  so  well. 

The  word  "testy"  may  be  a  little  unfamiliar  to 
some  of  you;  It  Is  a  good  old-fashioned  English 
term  for  "cross,"  "Irritable."  The  reference  to 
the  "old  gentlefolks"  Implies  the  well-known  fact 
that  In  argument  old  persons  are  Inclined  to  be 
much  more  obstinate  than  young  people.  And 
there  is  also  a  hint  in  the  poem  of  the  tendency 
among  old  ladles  to  blame  the  conduct  of  young 
girls  even  more  severely  than  may  be  necessary. 
There  Is  nothing  else  to  recommend  the  poem  ex- 
cept its  wit  and  the  curlousness  of  the  subject. 
There  are  several  other  verses  about  the  same 
creature,  by  different  American  poets;  but  none  of 
them  Is  quite  so  good  as  the  composition  of 
Holmes.  However,  I  may  cite  a  few  verses  from 
one  of  the  earlier  American  poets,  Philip  Freneau, 
who  flourished  In  the  eighteenth  century  and  the 
early  part  of  the  nineteenth.  He  long  anticipated 
the  fancy  of  Holmes;  but  he  spells  the  word 
Catydid. 

In  a  branch  of  willow  hid 

Sings  the  evening  Catydid : 

From  the  lofty  locust  bough 

Feeding  on  a  drop  of  dew, 

In  her  suit  of  green  arrayed 
»•  Hear  her  singing  in  the  shade — 

Catydid,  Catydid,  Catydid! 


SOME  POEMS  ABOUT  INSECTS    187 

While  upon  a  leaf  you  tread, 
Or  repose  your  little  head 
On  your  sheet  of  shadows  laid, 
All  the  day  you  nothing  said; 
Half  the  night  your  cheery  tongue 
Revelled  out  its  little  song, — 
Nothing  else  but  Catydid. 

Tell  me,  what  did  Caty  do? 
Did  she  mean  to  trouble  you  ? 
Why  was  Caty  not  forbid 
To  trouble  little  Catydid? 
Wrong,  indeed,  at  you  to  fling, 
Hurting  no  one  while  you  sing, — 
Catydid!  Catydid!  Catydid! 

To  Dr.  Holmes  the  voice  of  the  cicada  seemed 
like  the  voice  of  an  old  obstinate  woman,  an  old 
prude,  accusing  a  young  girl  of  some  fault, — but 
to  Freneau  the  cry  of  the  little  creature  seemed 
rather  to  be  like  the  cry  of  a  little  child  complain- 
ing— a  little  girl,  perhaps,  complaining  that  some- 
body had  been  throwing  stones  at  her,  or  had  hurt 
her  in  some  way.  And,  of  course,  the  unfinished 
character  of  the  phrase  allows  equally  well  either 
supposition. 

Before  going  back  to  more  serious  poetry,  I 
want — while  we  are  speaking  of  American  poets 
— to  make  one  reference  to  the  Ironical  or  satir- 
ical poetry  which  Insects  have  inspired  In  some 
minds,  taking  for  example  the  poem  by  Charlotte 
Perkins  Stetson  about  a  butterfly.    This  author  is 


1 88  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

rather  a  person  of  note,  being  a  prominent  figure 
in  educational  reforms  and  the  author  of  a  volume 
of  poems  of  a  remarkably  strong  kind  in  the  di- 
dactic sense.  In  other  words,  she  is  especially  a 
moral  poet;  and  unless  moral  poetry  be  really  very 
well  executed,  it  is  scarcely  worth  while  classing 
it  as  literature.  I  think,  however,  that  the  sym- 
bolism in  the  following  verses  will  interest  you — 
especially  when  we  comment  upon  them.  The 
composition  from  which  they  are  taken  is  entitled 
"A  Conservative." 

The  poet,  walking  in  the  garden  one  morning, 
sees  a  butterfly,  very  unhappy,  and  gifted  with 
power  to  express  the  reason  of  its  unhappiness. 
The  butterfly  says,  complaining  of  its  wings, 

"  My  legs  are  thin  and  few 

Where  once  I  had  a  swarm! 

Soft  fuzzy  fur — a  joy  to  view — 

Once  kept  my  body  warm, 

Before  these  flapping  wing-things  grew, 

To  hamper  and  deform !  " 

At  that  outrageous  bug  I  shot 
The  fury  of  mine  eye; 
Said  I,  in  scorn  all  burning  hot, 
In  rage  and  anger  high, 
"You   ignominious  idiot! 
Those  wings  are  made  to  fly !  ** 

"  I  do  not  want  to  fly,"  said  he, 

"  I  only  want  to  squirm !  " 

And  he  drooped  his  wings  dejectedly, 


SOME  POEMS  ABOUT  INSECTS    189 

But  still  his  voice  was  firm: 
"  I  do  not  want  to  be  a  fly ! 
I  want  to  be  a  worm! " 

0  yesterday  of  unknown  lack! 
To-day  of  unknown  bliss! 

1  left  my  fool  in  red  and  black, 
The  last  I  saw  was  this, — 

The  creature  madly  climbing  back 
Into  his  chrysalis. 

Of  course  the  wings  here  represent  the  powers 
of  the  mind — knowledge,  reason,  will.  Men 
ought  to  use  these  in  order  to  reach  still  nobler 
and  higher  states  of  life.  But  there  are  men  who 
refuse  to  use  their  best  faculties  for  this  end.  Such 
men  are  like  butterflies  who  do  not  want  to  take 
the  trouble  to  fly,  but  prefer  the  former  condition 
of  the  caterpillar  which  does  nothing  but  eat  and 
sleep.  As  applied  to  certain  forms  of  conserva- 
tism the  satire  is  strong. 

Something  may  now  be  said  as  to  poems  about 
spiders.  But  let  me  remind  you  that  a  spider  is 
not  an  insect.  Scientifically  it  has  no  relation  to 
the  great  family  of  true  insects;  it  belongs  to  the 
very  distinct  family  of  the  arthropoda  or  "joint- 
footed"  animals.  But  as  it  is  still  popularly  called 
an  insect  in  most  European  countries,  we  may  be 
excused  for  including  it  in  the  subject  of  the  pres- 
ent lecture.  I  suppose  you  know  that  one  of  the 
scientific  names  for  this  whole  class  of  creatures 
is  Arachnida, — a  name  derived  from  the  Greek 


I90  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

name  Arachne.  The  story  of  Arachne  is  interest- 
ing, and  everybody  studying  natural  history  ought 
to  know  it.  Arachne  was  a  young  girl,  according 
to  the  Greek  story,  who  was  very  skilful  at  weav- 
ing. She  wove  cloths  of  many  different  colours 
and  beautiful  patterns,  and  everybody  admired 
her  work.  This  made  her  vain — so  vain  that  at 
last  she  said  that  even  the  goddess  of  weaving 
could  not  weave  better  than  she.  Immediately 
after  she  had  said  that,  the  terrible  goddess  her- 
self— Pallas  Athena — entered  the  room.  Pallas 
Athena  was  not  only  the  goddess  of  wisdom,  you 
know,  but  especially  the  goddess  of  young  girls, 
presiding  over  the  chastity,  the  filial  piety,  and  the 
domestic  occupations  of  virgins;  and  she  was  very 
angry  at  the  conceit  of  this  girl.  So  she  said  to 
her,  "You  have  boasted  that  you  can  weave  as 
well  as  I  can;  now  let  me  see  you  weave!"  So 
Arachne  was  obliged  to  sit  down  at  her  loom  and 
weave  in  the  presence  of  the  goddess;  and  the  god- 
dess also  wove,  far  surpassing  the  weaving  of 
Arachne.  When  the  weaving  was  done,  the  god- 
dess asked  the  girl,  "Now  see  1  which  is  the  better, 
my  work  or  yours?"  And  Arachne  was  obliged 
to  confess  that  she  had  been  defeated  and  put  to 
shame.  But  the  goddess  was  not  thoroughly  sat- 
isfied; to  punish  Arachne,  she  touched  her  lightly 
with  the  distaff,  saying,  "Spin  forever!"  and  there- 
upon Arachne  was  changed  into  a  spider,  which 
forever  spins  and  weaves  perishable  films  of  per- 


SOME  POEMS  ABOUT  INSECTS    191 

ishable  shiny  thread.    Poetically  we  still  may  call 
a  spider  Arachne. 

I  have  here  a  little  poem  of  a  touching  char- 
acter entitled  "Arachne,"  by  Rose  Terry  Cooke, 
— one  of  the  symbolic  poems  which  are  becoming 
so  numerous  in  these  days  of  newer  and  deeper 
philosophy.  I  think  that  you  will  like  it:  a  spin- 
ster, that  is,  a  maiden  passed  the  age  of  girlhood, 
is  the  speaker. 

I  watch  her  in  the  corner  there, 
As,  restless,  bold,  and  unafraid. 
She  slips  and  floats  along  the  air 
Till  all  her  subtile  house  is  made. 

Her  home,  her  bed,  her  daily  food. 
All  from  that  hidden  store  she  draws; 
She  fashions  it  and  knows  it  good. 
By  instinct's  strong  and  sacred  laws. 

No  tenuous  threads  to  weave  her  nest, 
She  seeks  and  gathers  there  or  here; 
But  spins  it  from  her  faithful  breast, 
Renewing  still,  till  leaves  are  sere. 

Then,  worn  with  toil,  and  tired  of  life, 
In  vain  her  shining  traps  are  set. 
Her  frost  hath  hushed  the  insect  strife 
And  gilded  flies  her  charm  forget. 

But  swinging  in  the  snares  she  spun, 
She  sways  to  every  wintry  wind : 


192  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

Her  joy,  her  toil,  her  errand  done, 
Her  corse  the  sport  of  storms  unkind. 

The  symbolism  of  these  verses  will  appear  to 
you  more  significant  when  I  tell  you  that  it  refers 
especially  to  conditions  In  New  England  in  the 
present  period.     The  finest  American  population 
— perhaps  the  finest  Anglo-Saxons  ever  produced 
— were  the  New  Englanders  of  the  early  part  of 
the  century.    But  with  the  growth  of  the  new  cen- 
tury,  the  men   found   themselves   attracted   else- 
where,   especially    westward;    their    shrewdness, 
their  energies,  their  inventiveness,  were  needed  In 
newer   regions.      And   they   wandered   away   by 
thousands   and   thousands,   never   to    come   back 
again,  and  leaving  the  women  behind  them.    Grad- 
ually the  place  of  these  men  was  taken  by  immi- 
grants   of   Inferior   development — but    the   New 
England  women  had  nothing  to  hope  for  from 
these  strangers.     The  bravest  of  them  also  went 
away  to  other  states;  but  myriads  who  could  not 
go  were  condemned  by  circumstances  to  stay  and 
earn  their  living  by  hard  work  without  any  pros- 
pect of  happy  marriage.     The  difficulty  which  a 
girl  of  culture  may  experience  In  trying  to  live  by 
the  work  of  her  hands  In  New  England  Is  some- 
thing not  easily  imagined.     But  It  Is  getting  to  be 
the  same  In  most  Western  countries.     Such  a  girl 
Is  watching  a  spider  weaving  in  the  corner  of  the 
same  room  where  she  herself  is  weaving;  and  she 
thinks,  "Am  1  not  like  that  spider,  obliged  to  sup- 


SOME  POEMS  ABOUT  INSECTS    193 

ply  my  every  need  by  the  work  of  my  own  hands, 
without  sympathy,  without  friends?  The  spider 
will  spin  and  catch  flies  until  the  autumn  comes; 
then  she  will  die.  Perhaps  I  too  must  continue  to 
spin  until  the  autumn  of  my  own  life — until  I  be- 
come too  old  to  work  hard,  and  die  of  cold  and 
of  exhaustion." 

Poor  sister  of  the  spinster  clan ! 
I  too  from  out  my  store  within 
My  daily  life  and  living  plan, 
My  home,  my  rest,  my  pleasure  spin. 

I  know  thy  heart  when  heartless  hands 
Sweep  all  that  hard-earned  web  away; 
Destroy  its  pearled   and  glittering  bands, 
And  leave  thee  homeless  by  the  way. 

I  know  thy  peace  when  all  is  done. 
Each  anchored  thread,  each  tiny  knot. 
Soft  shining  in  the  autumn  sun ; 
A  sheltered,  silent,  tranquil  lot. 

I  know  what  thou  hast  never  known, — 
Sad  presage  to  a  soul  allowed — 
That  not  for  life  I  spin,  alone, 
But  day  by  day  I  spin  my  shroud. 

The  reference  to  the  sweeping  away  of  the 
spider'i  web,  of  course,  implies  the  pain  often 
caused  to  such  hardworking  girls  by  the  meanness 
of  men  who  employ  them  only  to  cheat  them — 


194  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

shopkeepers  or  manufacturers  who  take  their 
work  without  justly  paying  for  it,  and  who  crit- 
icize it  as  bad  in  order  to  force  the  owner  to  accept 
less  money  than  it  is  worth.  Again  a  reference 
may  be  intended  to  the  destruction  of  the  home 
by  some  legal  trick — some  unscrupulous  method 
of  cheating  the  daughter  out  of  the  property  be- 
queathed to  her  by  her  parents. 

Notice  a  few  pretty  words  here.  The  "pearled" 
as  applied  to  the  spider's  thread  gives  an  intima- 
tion of  the  effect  produced  by  dew  on  the  thread, 
but  there  is  also  the  suggestion  of  tears  upon  the 
thread  work  woven  by  the  hands  of  the  girl.  The 
participle  "anchored"  is  very  pretty  in  its  use  here 
as  an  adjective,  because  this  word  is  now  especially 
used  for  rope-fastening,  whether  the  rope  be  steel 
or  hemp;  and  particularly  for  the  fastening  of  the 
cables  of  a  bridge.  The  last  stanza  might  be  para- 
phrased thus:  "Sister  Spider,  I  know  more  than 
you — and  that  knowledge  makes  me  unhappy. 
You  do  not  know,  when  you  are  spinning  your 
little  web,  that  you  are  really  weaving  your  own 
shroud.  But  I  know  this,  my  work  is  slowly  but 
surely  killing  me.  And  I  know  it  because  1  have 
a  soul — at  least  a  mind  made  otherwise  than 
yours." 

The  use  of  the  word  "soul"  in  the  last  stanza 
of  this  poem,  brings  me  back  to  the  question  put 
forth  in  an  earlier  part  of  the  lecture, — why  Eu- 
ropean poets,  during  the  last  two  thousand  years, 


SOME  POEMS  ABOUT  INSECTS   195 

have  written  so  little  upon  the  subject  of  insects? 
Three  thousand,  four  thousand  years  ago,  the 
most  beautiful  Greek  poetry — poetry  more  per- 
fect than  anything  of  English  poetry — was  writ- 
ten upon  insects.  In  old  Japanese  literature  poems 
upon  insects  are  to  be  found  by  thousands.  What 
is  the  signification  of  the  great  modern  silence  in 
Western  countries  upon  this  delightful  topic?  I 
believe  that  Christianity,  as  dogma,  accounts  for 
the  long  silence.  The  opinions  of  the  early  Church 
refused  soul,  ghost,  intelligence  of  any  sort  to 
other  creatures  than  man.  All  animals  were  con- 
sidered as  automata — that  is,  as  self-acting  ma- 
chines, moved  by  a  something  called  instinct,  for 
want  of  a  better  name.  To  talk  about  the  souls 
of  animals  or  the  spirits  of  animals  would  have 
been  very  dangerous  in  the  Middle  Ages,  when  the 
Church  had  supreme  power;  it  would  indeed  have 
been  to  risk  or  to  invite  an  accusation  of  witch- 
craft, for  demons  were  then  thought  to  take  the 
shape  of  animals  at  certain  times.  To  discuss  the 
mind  of  an  animal  would  have  been  for  the  Chris- 
tian faith  to  throw  doubt  upon  the  existence  of 
human  souls  as  taught  by  the  Church;  for  if  you 
grant  that  animals  are  able  to  think,  then  you 
must  acknowledge  that  man  is  able  to  think  with- 
out a  soul,  or  you  must  acknowledge  that  the  soul 
is  not  the  essential  principle  of  thought  and  action. 
Until  after  the  time  of  Descartes,  who  later  ar- 
gued philosophically  that  animals  were  only  ma- 


ig6  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

chines,  it  was  scarcely  possible  to  argue  rationally 
about  the  matter  in  Europe. 

Nevertheless,  we  shall  soon  perceive  that  this 
explanation  will  not  cover  all  the  facts.     You  will 
naturally  ask  how  it  happens  that,  if  the  question 
be  a  question  of  animal  souls,  birds,  horses,  dogs, 
cats,  and  many  other  animals  have  been  made  the 
subject  of   Western   poems   from    ancient   times. 
The  silence  is  only  upon  the  subject  of  insects. 
And,  again,  Christianity  has  one  saint — the  most 
beautiful  character  in  all  Christian  hagiography 
— who  thought  of  all  nature  in  a  manner  that,  at 
first  sight,  strangely  resembles  Buddhism.     This 
saint  was   Francis  of  Assisi,  born  in  the   latter 
part  of  the  twelfth  century,  so  that  he  may  be  said 
to  belong  to  the  very  heart  of  the  Middle  Ages, — 
the  most  superstitious  epoch  of  Christianity.   Now 
this  saint  used  to  talk  to  trees  and  stones  as  if  they 
were  animated  beings.     He  addressed  the  sun  as 
"my  brother  sun";  and  he  spoke  of  the  moon  as 
his  sister.    He  preached  not  only  to  human  beings, 
but  also  to  the  birds  and  the  fishes;  and  he  made 
a  great  many  poems  on  these  subjects,  full  of  a 
strange  and  childish  beauty.    For  example,  his  ser- 
mon to  the  doves,  beginning,  "My  little  sisters, 
the  doves,"  in  which  he  reminds  them  that  their 
form  is  the  emblem  or  symbol  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 
is  a   beautiful  poem;   and   has  been,   with   many 
others,    translated    into    nearly    all    modern    lan- 
guages.    But  observe  that  neither  St.  Francis  nor 


SOME  POEMS  ABOUT  INSECTS    197 

any  other  saint  has  anything  to  say  on  the  subject 
of  insects. 

Perhaps  we  must  go  back  further  than  Chris- 
tianity to  guess  the  meaning  of  these  distinctions. 
Among  the  ancient  races  of  Asia,  where  the  Jew- 
ish faith  arose,  there  were  strange  and  sinister  be- 
liefs about  insects — old  Assyrian  superstitions,  old 
Babylonian  beliefs.  Insects  seemed  to  those  early 
peoples  very  mysterious  creatures  (which  they 
really  are)  ;  and  it  appears  to  have  been  thought 
that  they  had  a  close  relation  to  the  world  of 
demons  and  evil  spirits.  I  suppose  you  know  that 
the  name  of  one  of  their  gods,  Beelzebub,  signi- 
fies the  Lord  of  Flies.  The  Jews,  as  is  shown 
by  their  Talmudic  literature,  inherited  some  of 
these  ideas;  and  it  is  quite  probable  that  they  were 
passed  on  to  the  days  of  Christianity.  Again,  in 
the  early  times  of  Christianity  in  Northern  Africa 
the  Church  had  to  fight  against  superstitions  of  an 
equally  strange  sort  derived  from  old  Egyptian 
beliefs.  Among  the  Egyptians,  certain  insects 
were  sacred  and  became  symbols  of  divinity, — 
such  as  the  beetle.  Now  I  imagine  that  for  these 
reasons  the  subject  of  insects  became  at  an  early 
time  a  subject  which  Christianity  thought  danger- 
ous, and  that  thereafter  a  kind  of  hostile  opinion 
prevailed  regarding  any  literature  upon  this  topic. 
However,  to-day  things  are  very  different. 
With  the  development  of  scientific  studies — espe- 
cially of  microscopic  study — it  has  been  found  that 


198  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

Insects,  far  from  being  the  lowliest  of  creatures, 
are  the  most  highly  organized  of  all  beings;  that 
their  special  senses  are  incomparably  superior  to 
our  own;  and  that  in  natural  history,  from  the 
evolutional  standpoint,  they  have  to  be  given  first 
place.  This  of  course  renders  it  impossible  any 
longer  to  consider  the  insect  as  a  trifling  subject. 
Moreover,  the  new  philosophy  is  teaching  the 
thinking  classes  in  all  Western  countries  the  great 
truth  of  the  unity  of  life.  With  the  recognition  of 
such  unity,  an  insect  must  interest  the  philosophers 
— even  the  man  of  ordinary  culture — quite  as 
much  as  the  bird  or  any  other  animal. 

Nearly  all  the  poems  which  I  have  quoted  to 
you  have  been  poems  of  very  modern  date — from 
which  we  may  infer  that  interest  in  the  subject  of 
insects  has  been  developing  of  late  years  only.  In 
this  connection  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  a  very 
religious  poet,  Whittier,  gave  us  in  the  last  days 
of  his  life  a  poem  upon  ants.  This  would  have 
seemed  strange  enough  in  a  former  age;  it  does 
not  seem  strange  to-day,  and  it  is  beautiful.  The 
subject  is  taken  from  old  Jewish  literature. 


KING  SOLOMON  AND  THE  ANTS 


Out  from  Jerusalem 

The  King  rode  with  his  great 
War  chiefs  and  lords  of  state, 

And  Sheba's  queen  with  them; 


SOME  POEMS  ABOUT  INSECTS    199 

Comely,  but  black  withal, 

To  whom,  perchance,  belongs 

That  wondrous  Song  of  Songs, 
Sensuous  and  mystical, 


Whereto  devout  souls  turn 
In  fond,  ecstatic  dream. 
And  through  its  earth-born  theme 

The  Love  of  Loves  discern. 

Proud  in  the  Syrian  sun, 

In  gold  and  purple  sheen, 

The  dusky  Ethiop  queen 
Smiled  on  King  Solomon. 

Wisest  of  men,  he  knew 

The  languages  of  all 

The  creatures  great  or  small 
That  trod  the  earth  or  flew. 

Across  an  ant-hill  led 

The  king's  path,  and  he  heard 
Its  small  folk,  and  their  word 

He  thus  interpreted: 

"  Here  comes  the  king  men  greet 

As  wise  and  good  and  just, 

To  crush  us  in  the  dust 
Under  his  heedless  feet." 

The  king,  understanding  the  language  of  In- 
sects, turns  to  the  queen  and  explains  to  her  what 
the  ants  have  just  said.    She  advises  him  to  pay  no 


200  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

attention  to  the  sarcasm  of  the  ants — how  dare 
such  vile  creatures  speak  thus  about  a  kingl  But 
Solomon  thinks  otherwise : 

"  Nay,"  Solomon  replied, 

"  The  wise  and  strong  should  seek 
The  welfare  of  the  weak," 

And  turned  his  horse  aside. 

His  train,  with  quick  alarm, 
Curved  with  their  leader  round 
The  ant-hill's  peopled  mound, 

And  left  it  free  from  harm. 

The  jewelled  head  bent  low; 

"  Oh,  king!  "  she  said,  "  henceforth 

The  secret  of  thy  worth 
And  wisdom  well  I  know. 

"  Happy  must  be  the  State 

Whose  ruler  heedeth  more 

The  murmurs  of  the  poor 
Than  flatteries  of  the  great." 

The  reference  to  the  Song  of  Songs — also  the 
Song  of  Solomon  and  Canticle  of  Canticles — may 
require  a  little  explanation.  The  line  "Comely 
but  black  withal,"  is  borrowed  from  a  verse  of  this 
song — "I  am  black  but  beautiful,  oh,  ye  daughters 
of  Jerusalem,  as  the  tents  of  Kedar,  as  the  cur- 
tains of  Solomon."  In  another  part  of  the  song 
the  reason  of  this  blackness  is  given :  "I  am  black, 


SOME  POEMS  ABOUT  INSECTS    201 

because  the  sun  hath  looked  upon  me."  From 
which  we  can  see  that  the  word  black  only  means 
dark,  brown,  tanned  by  the  sun.  Perhaps  you  do 
not  know  that  as  late  as  the  middle  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century  it  was  still  the  custom  in  England 
to  speak  of  a  person  with  black  hair  and  eyes  as 
"a  black  man" — a  custom  which  Charles  Lamb 
had  reason  to  complain  of  even  at  a  later  day. 
The  tents  referred  to  in  the  text  were  probably 
tents  made  of  camel-skin,  such  as  the  Arabs  still 
make,  and  the  colour  of  these  is  not  black  but 
brown.  Whether  Solomon  wrote  the  so-called 
song  or  not  we  do  not  know;  but  the  poet  refers 
to  a  legend  that  it  was  written  in  praise  of  the 
beauty  of  the  dark  queen  who  came  from  Sheba 
to  visit  the  wisest  man  of  the  world.  Such  is  not, 
however,  the  opinion  of  modern  scholars.  The 
composition  is  really  dramatic,  although  thrown 
into  lyrical  form,  and  as  arranged  by  Renan  and 
others  it  becomes  a  beautiful  little  play,  of  which 
each  act  is  a  monologue.  "Sensuous"  the  poet 
correctly  calls  it;  for  it  is  a  form  of  praise  of 
woman's  beauty  in  all  its  details,  as  appears  in 
such  famous  verses  as  these:  "How  beautiful  are 
thy  feet  in  shoes,  O  prince's  daughter;  the  joints 
of  thy  thighs  are  like  jewels,  the  work  of  the  hands 
of  a  cunning  workman.  Thy  two  breasts  are  like 
two  young  roes  that  are  twins  which  feed  among 
the  lilies."  But  Christianity,  instead  of  dismiss- 
ing this  part  of  the  Bible,  interpreted  the  song 


202  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

mystically — insisting  that  the  woman  described 
meant  the  Church,  and  the  lover,  Christ.  Of 
course  only  very  pious  people  continue  to  believe 
this;  even  the  good  Whittier  preferred  the  legend 
that  it  was  written  about  the  Queen  of  Sheba. 

I  suppose  that  I  ought  to  end  this  lecture  upon 
insect  poetry  by  some  quotation  to  which  a  moral 
or  philosophical  meaning  can  be  attached.  1  shall 
end  it  therefore  with  a  quotation  from  the  poet 
Gray.  The  poetry  of  insects  may  be  said  to  have 
first  appeared  in  English  literature  during  the  sec- 
ond half  of  the  eighteenth  century,  so  that  it  is 
only,  at  the  most,  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  old. 
But  the  first  really  fine  poem  of  the  eighteenth 
century  relating  to  the  subject  is  quite  as  good  as 
anything  since  composed  by  Englishmen  upon  in- 
sect life  in  general.  Perhaps  Gray  referred  es- 
pecially to  what  we  call  May-flies — those  delicate 
ghostly  insects  which  hover  above  water  surfaces 
in  fine  weather,  but  which  die  on  the  same  day  that 
they  are  born.  He  does  not  specify  May-flies, 
however,  and  we  may  consider  the  moral  of  the 
poem  quite  apart  from  any  particular  kind  of  in- 
sect. You  will  find  this  reference  in  the  piece 
entitled  "Ode  on  the  Spring,"  In  the  third,  fourth, 
and  fifth  stanzas. 

Still  is  the  toiling  hand  of  care: 

The  panting  herds  repose: 
Yet  hark,  how  through  the  peopled  air 

The  busy  murmur  glows! 


SOME  POEMS  ABOUT  INSECTS    203 

The  insect  youth  are  on  the  wing, 
Eager  to  taste  the  honied  spring, 
And  float  amid  the  liquid  noon: 
Some  lightly  o'er  the  current  skim, 
Some  show  their  gaily-gilded  trim 
Quick-glancing  to  the  sun. 

To  Contemplation's  sober  eye 

Such  is  the  race  of  man: 
And  they  that  creep,  and  they  that  fly, 

Shall  end  where  they  began. 
Alike  the  Busy  and  the  Gay 
But  flutter  through  life's  little  day, 
In  fortune's  varying  colours  dressed: 
Brushed  by  the  hand  of  rough  Mischance, 
Or  chilled  by  Age,  their  airy  dance 

They  leave,  in  dust  to  rest. 

Methinks  I  hear  in  accents  low 

The  sportive  kind  reply: 
Poor  moralist!  and  what  art  thou? 

A  solitary  fly! 
Thy  joys  no  glittering  female  meets, 
No  hive  hast  thou  of  hoarded  sweets, 
No  painted  plumage  to  display: 
On  hasty  wings  thy  youth  is  flown ; 
Thy  sun  is  set;  thy  spring  is  gone — 

We  frolic,  while  'tis  May. 

The  poet  Gray  was  never  married,  and  the  last 
stanza  which  I  have  quoted  refers  jocosely  to  him- 
self. It  Is  an  artistic  device  to  set  off  the  moral 
by  a  little  mockery,  so  that  It  may  not  appear  too 
melancholy. 


CHAPTER  XI 

SOME  FRENCH  POEMS  ABOUT  INSECTS 

Last  year  1  gave  a  lecture  on  the  subject  of  Eng- 
lish poems  about  insects,  with  some  reference  to 
the  old  Greek  poems  on  the  same  subject.  But  I 
did  not  then  have  an  opportunity  to  make  any 
reference  to  French  poems  upon  the  same  subject, 
and  I  think  that  it  would  be  a  pity  not  to  give  you 
a  few  examples. 

Just  as  in  the  case  of  English  poems  about  in- 
sects, nearly  all  the  French  literature  upon  this 
subject  is  new.  Insect  poetry  belongs  to  the  newer 
and  larger  age  of  thought,  to  the  age  that  begins 
to  perceive  the  great  truth  of  the  unity  of  life.  We 
no  longer  find,  even  in  natural  histories,  the  insect 
treated  as  a  mere  machine  and  unthinking  organ- 
ism; on  the  contrary  its  habits,  its  customs  and  its 
manifestation  both  of  intelligence  and  instinct  are 
being  very  carefully  studied  in  these  times,  and  a 
certain  sympathy,  as  well  as  a  certain  feeling  of 
respect  or  admiration,  may  be  found  in  the  scien- 
tific treatises  of  the  greatest  men  who  write  about 
insect  life.  So,  naturally,  Europe  is  slowly  re- 
turning  to    the    poetical    standpoint    of   the    old 

Greeks  in  this  respect.    It  is  not  improbable  that 

204 


FRENCH  POEMS  ABOUT  INSECTS    205 

keeping  caged  insects  as  pets  may  again  become  a 
Western  custom,  as  it  was  in  Greek  times,  when 
cages  were  made  of  rushes  or  straw  for  the  little 
creatures.  I  suppose  you  have  heard  that  the  Jap- 
anese custom  is  very  likely  to  become  a  fashion  in 
America.  If  that  should  really  happen,  the  fact 
would  certainly  have  an  effect  upon  poetry,  I 
think  that  it  is  very  likely  to  happen. 

The  French  poets  who  have  written  pretty 
things  about  insects  are  nearly  all  poets  of  our  own 
times.  Some  of  them  treat  the  subject  from  the 
old  Greek  standpoint — indeed  the  beautiful  poem 
of  Heredia  upon  the  tomb  of  a  grasshopper  is  per- 
fectly Greek,  and  reads  almost  like  a  translation 
from  the  Greek.  Other  poets  try  to  express  the  ro- 
mance of  insects  in  the  form  of  a  monologue,  full 
of  the  thought  of  our  own  age.  Others  again 
touch  the  subject  of  insects  only  in  connection  with 
the  subject  of  love.  I  will  give  one  example  of 
each  method,  keeping  the  best  piece  for  the  last, 
and  beginning  with  a  pretty  fancy  about  a  dragon- 
fly. 

MA  LIBELLULE 

En  te  voyant,  toute  mignonne, 
Blanche  dans  ta  robe  d'azure, 
Je  pensais  a  quelque  madone 
Drapee  en  un  peu  de  ciel  pur. 

Je  songeals  a  ces  belles  saintes 
Que  Ton  voyait  au  temps  jadis 


2o6  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

Sourire  sur  les  vitres  peintes, 
Montrant  d'un  doigt  le  paradis: 

£t  j'aurais  voulu,  loin  du  monde 
Qui  passait  frivole  entre  nous, 
Dans  quelque  retraite  profonde 
T'adorer  seal  a  deux  genoux. 

This  first  part  of  the  poem  is  addressed  of 
course  to  a  beautiful  child,  some  girl  between  the 
age  of  childhood  and  womanhood: 

"Beholding  thee,  Oh  darling  one,  all  white  in 
thy  azure  dress,  I  thought  of  some  figure  of  the 
Madonna  robed  in  a  shred  of  pure  blue  sky. 

"I  dreamed  of  those  beautiful  figures  of  saints 
whom  one  used  to  see  in  olden  times  smiling  in 
the  stained  glass  of  church  windows,  and  pointing 
upward  to  Paradise. 

"And  I  could  have  wished  to  adore  you  alone 
upon  my  bended  knees  in  some  far  hidden  retreat, 
away  from  the  frivolous  world  that  passed  be- 
tween us." 

This  little  bit  of  ecstasy  over  the  beauty  and 
purity  of  a  child  is  pretty,  but  not  particularly 
original.  However,  it  is  only  an  introduction. 
Now  comes  the  pretty  part  of  the  poem: 

Soudain  un  caprice  bizarre 
Change  la  scene  et  le  decor, 
Et  men  esprit  au  loin  s'cgare 
Sur  des  grands  pres  d'azure  et  d'or. 


FRENCH  POEMS  ABOUT  INSECTS    207 

Ou,  pres  de  ruisseaux  muscules 
Gazouillants  comme  des  oiseaux, 
Se  poursuivent  les  libellules, 
Ces  fleurs  vivantes  des  roseaux. 

Enfant,  n'es  tu  pas  Tune  d'  elles 
Qui  me  poursuit  pour  consoler? 
Vainement  tu  caches  tes  ailes; 
Tu  marches,  mais  tu  sais  voler. 

Petite  fee  au  bleu  corsage, 
Que  j'ai  connu  des  mon  berceau, 
En  revoyant  ton  doux  visage, 
Je  pense  aux  joncs  de  mon  ruisseau ! 

Veux-tu  qu'en  amoureux  fideles 
Nous  revenions  dans  ces  pres  verts? 
Libellule,  reprends  tes  ailes; 
Moi,  je  brulerai  tous  mes  vers! 

Et  nous  irons,  sous  la  lumlere, 
D'un  ciel  plus  frais  et  plus  leger 
Chacun  dans  sa  forme  premiere, 
Moi  courir,  et  toi  voltiger. 

"Suddenly  a  strange  fancy  changes  for  me  the 
scene  and  the  scenery;  and  my  mind  wanders  far. 
away  over  great  meadows  of  azure  and  gold. 

"Where,  hard  by  tiny  streams  that  murmur  with 
a  sound  like  voices  of  little  birds,  the  dragon-flies, 
those  living  flowers  of  the  reeds,  chase  each  other 
at  play. 


2o8  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

"Child,  art  thou  not  one  of  those  dragon-flies, 
following  after  me  to  console  me?  Ah,  it  is  In 
vain  that  thou  tryest  to  hide  thy  wings;  thou  dost 
walk,  indeed,  but  well  thou  knowest  how  to  fly! 

"0  little  fairy  with  the  blue  corsage  whom  I 
knew  even  from  the  time  I  was  a  baby  in  the 
cradle ;  seeing  again  thy  sweet  face,  1  think  of  the 
rushes  that  border  the  little  stream  of  my  native 
village ! 

"Dost  thou  not  wish  that  even  now  as  faithful 
lovers  we  return  to  those  green  fields?  O  dragon- 
fly, take  thy  wings  again,  and  I — I  will  burn  all 
my  poetry, 

"And  we  shall  go  back,  under  the  light  of  the 
sky  more  fresh  and  pure  than  this,  each  of  us  in 
the  original  form — I  to  run  about,  and  thou  to 
hover  in  the  air  as  of  yore." 

The  sight  of  a  child's  face  has  revived  for  the 
poet  very  suddenly  and  vividly,  the  recollection  of 
the  village  home,  the  green  fields  of  childhood,  the 
little  stream  where  he  used  to  play  with  the  same 
little  girl,  sometimes  running  after  the  dragon-fly. 
And  now  the  queer  fancy  comes  to  him  that  she 
herself  is  so  like  a  dragon-fly — so  light,  graceful, 
spiritual!  Perhaps  really  she  is  a  dragon-fly  fol- 
lowing him  into  the  great  city,  where  he  struggles 
to  live  as  a  poet,  just  in  order  to  console  him.  She 
hides  her  wings,  but  that  is  only  to  prevent  other 
people  knowing.  Why  not  return  once  more  to 
the  home  of  childhood,  back  to  the  green  fields 


FRENCH  POEMS  ABOUT  INSECTS    209 

and  the  sun?  "Little  dragon-fly,"  he  says  to  her, 
"let  us  go  back!  do  you  return  to  your  beautiful 
summer  shape,  be  a  dragon-fly  again,  expand  your 
wings  of  gauze;  and  I  shall  stop  trying  to  write 
poetry.  I  shall  burn  my  verses ;  I  shall  go  back  to 
the  streams  where  we  played  as  children;  I  shall 
run  about  again  with  the  joy  of  a  child,  and  with 
you  beautifully  flitting  hither  and  thither  as  a 
dragon-fly." 

Victor  Hugo  also  has  a  little  poem  about  a 
dragon-fly,  symbolic  only,  but  quite  pretty.  It  is 
entitled  "La  Demoiselle"  ;  and  the  other  poem  was 
entitled,  as  you  remember,  "Ma  Libellule."  Both 
words  mean  a  dragon-fly,  but  not  the  same  kind 
of  dragon-fly.  The  French  word  "demoiselle," 
which  might  be  adequately  rendered  into  Japa- 
nese by  the  term  ojosan,  refers  only  to  those 
exquisitely  slender,  graceful,  slow-flitting  dragon- 
flies  known  to  the  scientist  by  the  name  of  Calop- 
teryx.  Of  course  you  know  the  difference  by  sight, 
and  the  reason  of  the  French  name  will  be  poet- 
ically apparent  to  you. 

Quand  la  demoiselle  doree 
S'envole  au  depart  des  hivers, 
Souvent  sa  robe  diapree, 
Souvent  son  aile  est  dechiree 
Aux  mille  dards  des  buissons  verts. 

Ainsi,  jeunesse  vive  et  frele, 
Qui,  t'egarant  de  tous  cotes, 


2IO  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

Voles  ou  ton  instinct  t'appele, 
Souvent  tu  dechires  ton  aile 
Aux  epines  des  voluptes. 

"When,  at  the  departure  of  winter,  the  gilded 
dragon-fly  begins  to  soar,  often  her  many-coloured 
robe,  often  her  wing,  is  torn  by  the  thousand 
thorns  of  the  verdant  shrubs. 

"Even  so,  O  frail  and  joyous  Youth,  who,  wan- 
dering hither  and  thither,  in  every  direction,  flyest 
wherever  thy  instinct  calls  thee — even  so  thou  dost 
often  tear  thy  wings  upon  the  thorns  of  pleasure." 

You  must  understand  that  pleasure  is  compared 
to  a  rose-bush,  whose  beautiful  and  fragrant 
flowers  attract  the  insects,  but  whose  thorns  are 
dangerous  to  the  visitors.  However,  Victor  Hugo 
does  not  use  the  word  for  rose-bush,  for  obvious 
reasons;  nor  does  he  qualify  the  plants  which  are 
said  to  tear  the  wings  of  the  dragon-fly.  I  need 
hardly  tell  you  that  the  comparison  would  not  hold 
good  in  reference  to  the  attraction  of  flowers,  be- 
cause dragon-flies  do  not  care  in  the  least  about 
flowers,  and  if  they  happen  to  tear  their  wings 
among  thorn  bushes,  it  is  much  more  likely  to  be 
in  their  attempt  to  capture  and  devour  other  in- 
sects. The  merit  of  the  poem  is  chiefly  in  its 
music  and  colour;  as  natural  history  it  would  not 
bear  criticism.  The  most  beautiful  modern 
French  poem  about  insects,  beautiful  because  of 
its  classical  perfection,  is  I  think  a  sonnet  by  He- 
redia,  entitled  "Epigramme  Funeraire" — that  is 


FRENCH  POEMS  ABOUT  INSECTS    211 

to  say,  "Inscription  for  a  Tombstone."  This  is 
an  exact  imitation  of  Greek  sentiment  and  expres- 
sion, carefully  studied  after  the  poets  of  the  an- 
thology. Several  such  Greek  poems  are  extant, 
recounting  how  children  mourned  for  pet  insects 
which  had  died  in  spite  of  all  their  care.  The 
most  celebrated  one  among  these  I  quoted  in  a 
former  lecture — the  poem  about  the  little  Greek 
girl  Myro  who  made  a  tomb  for  her  grasshopper 
and  cried  over  it.  Heredia  has  very  well  copied 
the  Greek  feeling  in  this  fine  sonnet: 

Ici  git,  Etranger,  la  verte  sauterelle 
Que  durant  deux  saisons  nourrit  la  jeune  Helle, 
Et  dont  I'aile  vibrant  sous  le  pied  dentele. 
Bruissait  dans  le  pin,  le  cytise,  ou  I'airelle. 

Elle  s'est  tue,  helas!  la  lyre  naturelle. 
La  muse  des  guerets,  des  sillons  et  du  ble ; 
De  peur  que  son  leger  sommeil  ne  soit  trouble, 
Ah,  passe  vite,  ami,  ne  pese  point  sur  elle. 

C'est  la.  Blanche,  au  milieu  d'une  touffe  de  thym, 

Sa  pierre  funeraire  est  fraichement  posee. 

Que  d'hommes  n'ont  pas  eu  ce  supreme  destin! 

Des  larmes  d'un  enfant  la  tombe  est  arrosee, 
Et  TAurore  pieuse  y  fait  chaque  matin 
Une  libation  de  gouttes  de  rosee. 

"Stranger,  here  reposes  the  green  grasshopper 
that  the  young  girl  Helle  cared  for  during  two 


212  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

seasons, — the  grasshopper  whose  wings,  vibrating 
under  the  strokes  of  its  serrated  feet,  used  to  re- 
sound in  the  pine,  the  trefoil  and  the  whortle- 
berry. 

"She  is  silent  now,  alas  I  that  natural  lyre,  muse 
of  the  unsown  fields,  of  the  furrows,  and  of  the 
wheat.  Lest  her  light  sleep  should  be  disturbed, 
ah  I  pass  quickly,  friend !  do  not  be  heavy  upon  her. 

"It  is  there.  All  white,  in  the  midst  of  a  tuft  of 
thyme,  her  funeral  monument  is  placed,  in  cool 
shadow;  how  many  men  have  not  been  able  to 
have  this  supremely  happy  end! 

"By  the  tears  of  a  child  the  insect's  tomb  is 
watered;  and  the  pious  goddess  of  dawn  each 
morning  there  makes  a  libation  of  drops  of 
dew." 

This  reads  very  imperfectly  in  a  hasty  transla- 
tion; the  original  charm  is  due  to  the  perfect  art 
of  the  form.  But  the  whole  thing,  as  I  have  said 
before,  is  really  Greek,  and  based  upon  a  close 
study  of  several  little  Greek  poems  on  the  same 
kind  of  subject.  Little  Greek  girls  thousands  of 
years  ago  used  to  keep  singing  insects  as  pets, 
every  day  feeding  them  with  slices  of  leek  and 
with  fresh  water,  putting  in  their  little  cages  sprigs 
of  the  plants  which  they  liked.  The  sorrow  of  the 
child  for  the  inevitable  death  of  her  insect  pets  at 
the  approach  of  winter,  seems  to  have  inspired 
many  Greek  poets.  With  all  tenderness,  the  child 
would  make  a  small  grave  for  the  insect,  bury  it 
solemnly,  and  put  a  little  white  stone  above  the 


FRENCH  POEMS  ABOUT  INSECTS    213 

place  to  imitate  a  grave-stone.  But  of  course  she 
would  want  an  inscription  for  this  tombstone — 
perhaps  would  ask  some  of  her  grown-up  friends 
to  compose  one  for  her.  Sometimes  the  grown-up 
friend  might  be  a  poet,  in  which  case  he  would 
compose  an  epitaph  for  all  time. 

I  suppose  you  perceive  that  the  solemnity  of  this 
imitation  of  the  Greek  poems  on  the  subject  is 
only  a  tender  mockery,  a  playful  sympathy  with 
the  real  grief  of  the  child.  The  expression,  "pass, 
friend,"  is  often  found  in  Greek  funeral  inscrip- 
tions together  with  the  injunction  to  tread  lightly 
upon  the  dust  of  the  dead.  There  is  one  French 
word  to  which  I  will  call  attention, — the  word 
"guerets."  We  have  no  English  equivalent  for 
this  term,  said  to  be  a  corruption  of  the  Latin 
word  "veractum,"  and  meaning  fields  which  have 
been  ploughed  but  not  sown. 

Not  to  dwell  longer  upon  the  phase  of  art 
indicated  by  this  poem,  I  may  turn  to  the  subject 
of  crickets.  There  are  many  French  poems 
about  crickets.  One  by  Lamartine  is  known  to  al- 
most every  French  child. 

Grillon  solitaire, 
Ici  comme  moi, 
Voix  qui  sors  de  terre, 
Ah!  reveille-toi ! 
J'attise  la  flamme, 
C'est  pour  t'egayer; 
Mais  il  manque  une  ame, 
Une  ame  au  foyer. 


214  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

Grillon  solitaire, 
Voix  qui  sors  de  terre, 
Ah!  reveille-toi 
Pour  moi. 

Quand  j'etais  petite 
Comme  ce  berceau, 
Et  que  Marguerite 
Filait  son  fuseau, 
Quand  le  vent  d'automne 
Faisait  tout  gemir, 
Ton  cri   monotone 
M'aidait  a  dormir. 

Grillon  solitaire, 
Voix  qui  sors  de  terre, 
Ah!  reveille-toi 
Pour  moi. 

Seize  fois  I'annee 
A  compte  mes  jours; 
Dans  la  cheminee 
Tu  niches  toujours. 
Je  t'ecoute  encore 
Aux  froides  saisons. 
Souvenir  sonore 
Des  vieilles  maisons. 

Grillon  solitaire, 
Voix  qui  sors  de  terre, 
Ah !   reveille-toi 
Pour  moi. 

It  is  a  young  girl  who  thus  addresses  the  cricket 


FRENCH  POEMS  ABOUT  INSECTS    215 

of  the  hearth,  the  house  cricket.  It  is  very  com- 
mon in  country  houses  in  Europe.  This  is  what 
she  says: 

"Little  solitary  cricket,  all  alone  here  just  like 
myself,  little  voice  that  comes  up  out  of  the 
ground,  ah,  awake  for  my  sake !  I  am  stirring 
up  the  fires,  that  is  just  to  make  you  comfortable; 
but  there  lacks  a  presence  by  the  hearth;  a  soul 
to  keep  me  company, 

"When  I  was  a  very  little  girl,  as  little  as  that 
cradle  in  the  corner  of  the  room,  then,  while  Mar- 
garet our  servant  sat  there  spinning,  and  while 
the  autumn  wind  made  everything  moan  outside, 
your  monotonous  cry  used  to  help  me  to  fall 
asleep. 

"Solitary  cricket,  voice  that  issues  from  the 
ground,  awaken,  for  my  sake. 

"Now  I  am  sixteen  years  of  age  and  you  are 
still  nestling  in  the  chimneys  as  of  old.  I  can 
hear  you  still  in  the  cold  season, — like  a  sound — 
memory, — a  sonorous  memory  of  old  houses. 

"Solitary  cricket,  voice  that  issues  from  the 
ground,  awaken,  O  awaken  for  my  sake." 

I  do  not  think  this  pretty  little  song  needs  any 
explanation;  I  would  only  call  your  attention  to 
the  natural  truth  of  the  fancy  and  the  feeling.  Sit- 
ting alone  by  the  fire  in  the  night,  the  maiden 
wants  to  hear  the  cricket  sing,  because  it  makes 
her  think  of  her  childhood,  and  she  finds  happi- 
ness in  remembering  it. 


2i6  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

So  far  as  mere  art  goes,  the  poem  of  Gautler 
on  the  cricket  is  very  much  finer  than  the  poem  of 
Lamartine,  though  not  so  natural  and  pleasing. 
But  as  Gautier  was  the  greatest  master  of  French 
verse  in  the  nineteenth  century,  not  excepting  Vic- 
tor Hugo,  I  think  that  one  example  of  his  poetry 
on  insects  may  be  of  interest.  He  was  very  poor, 
compared  with  Victor  Hugo;  and  he  had  to  make 
his  living  by  writing  for  newspapers,  so  that  he 
had  no  time  to  become  the  great  poet  that  nature 
intended  him  to  be.  However,  he  did  find  time 
to  produce  one  volume  of  highly  finished  poetry, 
which  is  probably  the  most  perfect  verse  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  if  not  the  most  perfect  verse 
ever  made  by  a  French  poet;  1  mean  the  "Emaux 
et  Camees."  But  the  little  poem  which  I  am  go- 
ing to  read  to  you  is  not  from  the  "Emaux  et 
Camees." 

Souffle,  bise!    Tombe  a  flots,  pluie! 
Dans  mon  palais  tout  noir  de  suie, 
Je  ris  de  la  pluie  et  du  vent; 
En  attendant  que  I'hiver  fuie, 
Je  reste  au  coin  du  feu,  revant. 


C'est  moi  qui  suis  I'esprit  de  I'atrel 
Le  gaz,  de  sa  langue  bleuatre, 
Leche  plus  doucement  le  bois; 
La  fumee  en  filet  d'albatre, 
Monte  et  se  contourne  a  ma  voix. 


FRENCH  POEMS  ABOUT  INSECTS    217 

La  bouilloire  rit  et  babille; 

La  flamme  aux  pieds  d'argent  sautille 

En  accompagnant  ma  chanson; 

La  buche  de  duvet  s'habille; 

La  seve  bout  dans  le  tison. 

Pendant  la  nuit  et  la  journee 
Je  chante  sous  la  cheminee; 
Dans  mon  langage  de  grillon 
J'ai,  des  rebuts  de  son  ainee, 
Souvent  console  Cendrillon. 

Quel  plaisir?    Prolonger  sa  veille, 
Regarder  la  flamme  vermeille 
Prenant  a  deux  bras  le  tison, 
A  tous  les_  bruits  preter  I'oreille, 
Entendre  vivre  la  maison. 

Tapi  dans  sa  niche  bien  chaude, 
Sentir  I'hiver  qui  pleure  et  rode, 
Tout  bleme,  et  le  nez  violet, 
Tachant  de  s'introduire  en  fraude 
Par  quelque  fente  du  volet! 

This  poem  is  especially  picturesque,  and  is  in- 
tended to  give  us  the  comfortable  sensations  of  a 
winter  night  by  the  fire,  and  the  amusement  of 
watching  the  wood  burn  and  of  hearing  the  kettle 
boiling.  You  will  find  that  the  French  has  a  par- 
ticular quality  of  lucid  expression;  it  is  full  of 
clearness  and  colour. 

"Blow  on,  cold  wind!  pour  down,  O  rain.    I,  In 


2i8  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

my  soot-black  palace,  laugh  at  both  rain  and  wind; 
and  while  waiting  for  winter  to  pass  I  remain  in 
my  corner  by  the  fire  dreaming. 

"It  is  I  that  am  really  the  spirit  of  the  hearth  I 
The  gaseous  flame  licks  the  wood  more  softly  with 
its  bluish  tongue  when  it  hears  me ;  and  the  smoke 
rises  up  like  an  alabaster  thread,  and  curls  itself 
about  (or  twists)  at  the  sound  of  my  voice. 

"The  kettle  chuckles  and  chatters;  the  golden- 
footed  flame  leaps,  dancing  to  the  accompaniment 
of  my  song  (or  in  accompaniment  to  my  song)  ; 
the  great  log  covers  itself  with  down,  the  sap  boils 
in  the  wooden  embers  ("duvet,"  meaning  "down," 
refers  to  the  soft  fluffy  white  ash  that  forms  upon 
the  surface  of  burning  wood). 

"All  night  and  all  day  I  sing  below  the  chim- 
ney. Often  in  my  cricket-language,  I  have  con- 
soled Cinderella  for  the  snubs  of  her  elder  sister. 

"Ah,  what  pleasure  to  sit  up  at  night,  and  watch 
the  crimson  flames  embracing  the  wood  (or  hug- 
ging the  wood)  with  both  arms  at  once,  and  to 
listen  to  all  the  sounds  and  to  hear  the  life  of 
the  house ! 

"Nestling  in  one's  good  warm  nook,  how  pleas- 
ant to  hear  Winter,  who  weeps  and  prowls  round 
about  the  house  outside,  all  wan  and  blue-nosed 
with  cold,  trying  to  smuggle  itself  inside  some 
chink  in  the  shutter  1" 

Of  course  this  does  not  give  us  much  about  the 
insect  itself,  which  remains  invisible  in  the  poem, 


FRENCH  POEMS  ABOUT  INSECTS    219 

just  as  it  really  remains  invisible  in  the  house 
where  the  voice  is  heard.  Rather  does  the  poem 
express  the  feelings  of  the  person  who  hears  the 
cricket. 

When  we  come  to  the  subject  of  grasshoppers, 
I  think  that  the  French  poets  have  done  much  bet- 
ter than  the  English.  There  are  many  poems  on 
the  field  grasshopper;  I  scarcely  know  which  to 
quote  first.  But  I  think  you  would  be  pleased  with 
a  little  composition  by  the  celebrated  French 
painter,  Jules  Breton.  Like  Rossetti  fie  was  both 
painter  and  poet;  and  in  both  arts  he  took  for  his 
subjects  by  preference  things  from  country  life. 
This  little  poem  is  entitled  "Les  Cigales."  The 
word  "cigales,"  though  really  identical  with  our 
word  "cicala,"  seldom  means  the  same  thing.  In- 
deed the  French  word  may  mean  several  different 
kinds  of  insects,  and  it  is  only  by  studying  the 
text  that  we  can  feel  quite  sure  what  sort  of  insect 
is  meant. 

Lorsque  dans  I'herbe  mure  ancun  epi  ne  bouge, 
Qu'a  I'ardeur  des  rayons  crepite  le  frement, 
Que  le  coquelicot  tombe  languissament 
Sous  le  faible  fardeau  de  sa  coroUe  rouge, 


Tous  les  oiseaux  de  I'air  ont  fait  taire  leur  chants ; 
Les  ramiers  paresseux,  au  plus  noir  des  ramures, 
Somnolents,  dans  les  bois,  ont  cesse  leurs  murmures 
Loin  du  soleil  muet  incendiant  les  champs. 


220  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

Dans  le  ble,  cependant,  d'intrepides  cigales 

Jetant  leurs  mille  bruits,  fanfare  de  I'ete, 

Ont  frenetiquement  et  sans  treve  agite 

Leurs  ailes  sur  I'airaine  de  leurs  folks  cymbales. 

Tremoussantes,  deboutes  sur  les  longs  epis  d'or, 
Virtuoses  qui  vent  s'eteindre  avant  I'automnc, 
Elles  poussent  au  ciel  leur  hymne  monotone 
Que  dans  I'ombre  des  nuits  retentisse  encore. 

Et  rien  n'arretera  leurs  cris  intarissables ; 
Quand  on  les  chassera  de  I'avoine  et  des  bles. 
Elles  emigreront  sur  les  buissons  brules 
Qui  se  meurent  de  soif  dans  les  deserts  de  sable. 

Sur  I'arbuste  effeuille,  sur  les  chardons  fletris 
Qui  laissent  s'envoler  leur  blanche  chevelure, 
On  reverra  I'insecte  a  la  forte  encolure, 
Pleine  d'ivresse,  toujours  s'exalter  dans  ses  cris. 

Jusqu'a  ce  qu'ouvrant  I'aile  en  lambeaux  arrachee, 
Exaspere,  brulant  d'un  feu  toujours  plus  pur, 
Son  ceil  de  bronze  fixe  et  tendu  vers  I'azur, 
II  expire  en  chantant  sur  la  tige  sechee. 

For  the  word  "encolure"  we  have  no  English 
equivalent;  It  means  the  line  of  the  neck  and 
shoulder — sometimes  the  general  appearance  or 
shape  of  the  body. 

"When  in  the  ripening  grain  field  not  a  single 
ear  of  wheat  moves;  when  in  the  beaming  heat 
the  corn  seems  to  crackle;  when  the  poppy  Ian- 


FRENCH  POEMS  ABOUT  INSECTS    221 

gulshes  and  bends  down  under  the  feeble  burden 
of  its  scarlet  corolla, 

"Then  all  the  birds  of  the  air  have  hushed  their 
songs;  even  the  indolent  doves,  seeking  the  dark- 
est part  of  the  foliage  in  the  tree,  have  become 
drowsy  in  the  woods,  and  have  ceased  their  coo- 
ing, far  from  the  fields,  which  the  silent  sun  is 
burning. 

"Nevertheless,  in  the  wheat,  the  brave  grass- 
hoppers uttering  their  thousand  sounds,  a  trum- 
pet flourish  of  summer,  have  continued  furiously 
and  unceasingly  to  smite  their  wings  upon  the 
brass  of  their  wild  cymbal. 

"Quivering  as  they  stand  upon  the  long  gold 
ears  of  the  grain,  master  musicians  who  must  die 
before  the  coming  of  Fall,  they  sound  to  heaven 
their  monotonous  hymn,  which  re-echoes  even  in 
the  darkness  of  the  night. 

"And  nothing  will  check  their  inexhaustible 
shrilling.  When  chased  away  from  the  oats  and 
from  the  wheat,  they  will  migrate  to  the  scorched 
bushes  which  die  of  thirst  in  the  wastes  of 
sand. 

"Upon  the  leafless  shrubs,  upon  the  dried  up 
thistles,  which  let  their  white  haif  fall  and  float 
away,  there  the  sturdily-built  insect  can  be  seen 
again,  filled  with  enthusiasm,  even  more  and  more 
excited  as  he  cries, 

"Until,  at  last,  opening  his  wings,  now  rent  into 
shreds,    exasperated,    burning    more    and    more 


222  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

fiercely  in  the  frenzy  of  his  excitement,  and  with 
his  eyes  of  bronze  always  fixed  motionlessly  upon 
the  azure  sky,  he  dies  in  his  song  upon  the  with- 
ered grain." 

This  is  difficult  to  translate  at  all  satisfactorily, 
owing  to  the  multitude  of  images  compressed  to- 
gether. But  the  idea  expressed  is  a  fine  one — the 
courage  of  the  insect  challenging  the  sun,  and  only 
chanting  more  and  more  as  the  heat  and  the  thirst 
increase.  The  poem  has,  if  you  hke,  the  fault  of 
exaggeration,  but  the  colour  and  music  are  very 
fine;  and  even  the  exaggeration  itself  has  the  merit 
of  making  the  images  more  vivid. 

It  will  not  be  necessary  to  quote  another  text; 
we  shall  scarcely  have  the  time;  but  I  want  to 
translate  to  you  something  of  another  poem  upon 
the  same  insect  by  the  modern  French  poet  Jean 
Aicard.  In  this  poem,  as  in  the  little  poem  by 
Gautier,  which  I  quoted  to  you,  the  writer  puts 
his  thought  in  the  mouth  of  the  insect,  so  to  say — 
that  is,  makes  the  insect  tell  its  own  story. 

"I  am  the  impassive  and  noble  insect  that  sings 
in  the  summer  solstice  from  the  dazzling  dawn  all 
the  day  long  in  the  fragrant  pine-wood.  And  my 
song  is  always  the  same,  regular  as  the  equal 
course  of  the  season  and  of  the  sun.  I  am  the 
speech  of  the  hot  and  beaming  sun,  and  when 
the  reapers,  weary  of  heaping  the  sheaves  to- 
gether, lie  down  in  the  lukewarm  shade,  and  sleep 
and  pant  in  the  ardour  of  noonday — then  more 


FRENCH  POEMS  ABOUT  INSECTS    223 

than  at  any  other  time  do  I  utter  freely  and  joy- 
ously that  double-echoing  strophe  with  which  my 
whole  body  vibrates.  And  when  nothing  else 
moves  in  all  the  land  round  about,  I  palpitate  and 
loudly  sound  my  little  drum.  Otherwise  the  sun- 
light triumphs;  and  in  the  whole  landscape  noth- 
ing is  heard  but  my  cry, — lilce  the  joy  of  the  light 
itself. 

"Like  a  butterfly  I  take  up  from  the  hearts  of 
the  flowers  that  pure  water  which  the  night  lets 
fall  into  them  like  tears.  I  am  inspired  only  by 
the  almighty  sun.  Socrates  listened  to  me;  Virgil 
made  mention  of  me.  I  am  the  insect  especially 
beloved  by  the  poets  and  by  the  bards.  The 
ardent  sun  reflects  himself  in  the  globes  of  my 
eyes.  My  ruddy  bed,  which  seems  to  be  powdered 
like  the  surface  of  fine  ripe  fruit,  resembles  some 
exquisite  key-board  of  silver  and  gold,  all  quiver- 
ing with  music.  My  four  wings,  with  their  deli- 
cate net-work  of  nerves,  allow  the  bright  down 
upon  my  black  back  to  be  seen  through  their  trans- 
parency. And  like  a  star  upon  the  forehead  of 
some  divinely  inspired  poet,  three  exquisitely 
mounted  rubies  glitter  upon  my  head." 

These  are  fair  examples  of  the  French  manner 
of  treating  the  interesting  subject  of  insects  in 
poetry.  If  you  should  ask  me  whether  the  French 
poets  are  better  than  the  English,  I  should  an- 
swer, "In  point  of  feeling,  no."  The  real  value 
of  such  examples  to  the  student  should  be  emo- 


224  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

tlonal,  not  descriptive.  I  think  that  the  Japanese 
poems  on  insects,  though  not  comparable  in  point 
of  mere  form  with  some  of  the  foreign  poems 
which  1  have  quoted,  are  better  in  another  way — 
they  come  nearer  to  the  true  essence  of  poetry. 
For  the  Japanese  poets  have  taken  the  subject  of 
insects  chiefly  for  the  purpose  of  suggesting 
human  emotion;  and  that  is  certainly  the  way  in 
which  such  a  subject  should  be  used.  Remember 
that  this  is  an  age  in  which  we  are  beginning  to 
learn  things  about  insects  which  could  not  have 
been  even  imagined  fifty  years  ago,  and  the  more 
that  we  learn  about  these  miraculous  creatures, 
the  more  difficult  does  it  become  for  us  to  write 
poetically  about  their  lives,  or  about  their  pos- 
sible ways  of  thinking  and  feeling.  Probably  no 
mortal  man  will  ever  be  able  to  imagine  how  in- 
sects think  or  feel  or  hear  or  even  see.  Not  only 
are  their  senses  totally  different  from  those  of 
animals,  but  they  appear  to  have  a  variety  of  spe- 
cial senses  about  which  we  can  not  know  anything 
at  all.  As  for  their  existence,  it  is  full  of  facts 
so  atrocious  and  so  horrible  as  to  realize  most  of 
the  imaginations  of  old  about  the  torments  of 
hell.  Now,  for  these  reasons  to  make  an  insect 
speak  in  poetry — to  put  one's  thoughts,  so  to 
speak,  into  the  mouth  of  an  insect — is  no  longer 
consistent  with  poetical  good  judgment.  No;  we 
must  think  of  insects  either  in  relation  to  the  mys- 
tery of  their  marvellous  lives,  or  in  relation  to  the 


.  FRENCH  POEMS  ABOUT  INSECTS    225 

emotion  which  their  sweet  and  melancholy  music 
makes  within  our  minds.  The  impressions  pro- 
duced by  hearing  the  shrilling  of  crickets  at  night 
or  by  hearing  the  storm  of  cicadze  in  summer 
woods — those  impressions  indeed  are  admirable 
subjects  for  poetry,  and  will  continue  to  be  for  all 
time. 

When  1  lectured  to  you  long  ago  about  Greek 
and  English  poems  on  insects,  I  told  you  that 
nearly  all  the  English  poems  on  the  subject  were 
quite  modern.  1  still  believe  that  I  was  right  in 
this  statement,  as  a  general  assertion;  but  I  have 
found  one  quaint  poem  about  a  grasshopper, 
which  must  have  been  written  about  the  middle  of 
the  seventeenth  century  or,  perhaps,  a  little  earlier. 
The  date  of  the  author's  birth  and  death  are  re- 
spectively 161 8  and  1658.  His  name,  I  think,  you 
are  familiar  with — Richard  Lovelace,  author  of 
many  amatory  poems,  and  of  one  especially 
famous  song,  "To  Lucasta,  on  Going  to  the  Wars" 
—containing  the  celebrated  stanza — 

Yet  this  inconstancy  is  such 

As  you  too  shall  adore; 
I  could  not  love  thee,  Dear,  so  much, 

Loved  I  not  honour  more. 

Well,  as  I  said,  this  man  wrote  one  pretty  little 
poem  on  a  grasshopper,  which  antedates  most  of 
the  English  poems  on  insects,  if  not  all  of  them. 


226  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

THE  GRASSHOPPER 

O  Thou  that  swing'st  upon  the  waving  ear 

Of  some  well-filled  oaten  beard, 
Drunk  every  night  with  a  delicious  tear 

Dropt  thee  from  heaven,  where  now  th'art  rear'd ! 

The  joys  of  earth  and  air  are  thine  entire, 

That  with  thy  feet  and  wings  dost  hop  and  fly; 

And  when  thy  poppy  works,  thou  dost  retire 
To  thy  carved  acorn-bed  to  lie. 

Up  with  the  day,  the  Sun  thou  welcom'st  then, 
Sport'st  in  the  gilt  plaits  of  his  beams, 

And  all  these  merry  days  mak'st  merry  men 
Thyself,  and  melancholy  streams. 

A  little  artificial,  this  poem  written  at  least  two 
hundred  and  fifty  years  ago;  but  it  is  pretty  in 
spite  of  its  artifice.  Some  of  the  conceits  are  so 
quaint  that  they  must  be  explained.  By  the  term 
"oaten  beard,"  the  poet  means  an  ear  of  oats; 
and  you  know  that  the  grain  of  this  plant  is  fur- 
nished with  very  long  hair,  so  that  many  poets 
have  spoken  of  the  bearded  oats.  You  may  re- 
member in  this  connection  Tennyson's  phrase  "the 
bearded  barley"  in  the  "Lady  of  Shalott,"  and 
Longfellow's  term  "bearded  grain"  In  his  famous 
poem  about  the  Reaper  Death.  When  a  per- 
son's beard  Is  very  thick,  we  say  in  England 
to-day  "a  full  beard,"  but  in  the  time  of  Shake- 
speare they  used  to  say  "a  well  filled  beard" — 
hence  the  phrase  In  the  second  line  of  the  first 
stanza. 


FRENCH  POEMS  ABOUT  INSECTS    227 

In  the  third  line  the  term  "delicious  tear"  means 
dew, — which  the  Greeks  called  the  tears  of  the 
night,  and  sometimes  the  tears  of  the  dawn;  and 
the  phrase  "drunk  with  dew"  is  quite  Greek — so  we 
may  suspect  that  the  author  of  this  poem  had  been 
reading  the  Greek  Anthology.  In  the  third  line 
of  the  second  stanza  the  word  "poppy"  is  used 
for  sleep — a  very  common  simile  in  Elizabethan 
times,  because  from  the  poppy  flower  was  ex- 
tracted the  opiate  which  enables  sick  persons  to 
sleep.  The  Greek  authors  spoke  of  poppy  sleep. 
"And  when  thy  poppy  works,"  means,  when  the 
essence  of  sleep  begins  to  operate  upon  you,  or 
more  simply,  when  you  sleep.  Perhaps  the  phrase 
about  the  "carved  acorn-bed"  may  puzzle  you;  it 
is  borrowed  from  the  fairy-lore  of  Shakespeare's 
time,  when  fairies  were  said  to  sleep  in  little  beds 
carved  out  of  acorn  shells;  the  simile  is  used  only 
by  way  of  calling  the  insect  a  fairy  creature.  In 
the  second  line  of  the  third  stanza  you  may  notice 
the  curious  expression  about  the  "gilt  plaits"  of 
the  sun's  beams.  It  was  the  custom  in  those  days, 
as  it  still  is  in  these,  for  young  girls  to  plait  their 
long  hair;  and  the  expression  "gilt  plaits"  only 
means  braided  or  plaited  golden  hair.  This  is 
perhaps  a  Greek  conceit;  for  classic  poets  spoke  of 
the  golden  hair  of  the  Sun  God  as  illuminating  the 
world.  I  have  said  that  the  poem  is  a  little  arti- 
ficial, but  I  think  you  will  find  it  pretty,  and  even 
the  whimsical  similes  are  "precious"  in  the  best 
sense. 


CHAPTER  XII 

NOTE   ON  THE   INFLUENCE   OF    FINNISH   POETRY^ 
IN  ENGLISH   LITERATURE 

The  subject  of  Finnish  poetry  ought  to  have  a 
special  interest  for  the  Japanese  student,  if  only  for 
the  reason  that  Finnish  poetry  comes  more  closely 
in  many  respects  to  Japanese  poetry  than  any 
other  form  of  Western  poetry.  Indeed  it  is  sup- 
posed that  the  Finnish  race  is  more  akin  to  the 
Tartar  races,  and  therefore  probably  to  the  Jap- 
anese, than  the  races  of  Europe  proper.  Again, 
through  Longfellow,  the  value  of  Finnish  poetry 
to  English  poetry  was  first  suggested,  and  I  think 
you  know  that  Longfellow's  Indian  epic,  "The 
Song  of  Hiawatha,"  was  modelled  entirely  upon 
the  Finnish  "Kalevala." 

But  a  word  about  the  "Kalevala,"  which  has  a 
very  interesting  history.  I  believe  you  know  that 
at  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century,  the 
"Kalevala"  was  not  known  to  exist.  During  the 
first  half  of  the  century,  Finnish  scholars  in  the 
University  of  Helsingfors  (where  there  is  now  a 
great  and  flourishing  university)  began  to  take  lit- 
erary interest  in  the  popular  songs  of  Finland,  For 
years  the  people  bad  been  singing  extraordinary 

«28 


FINNISH  POETRY  229 

songs,  full  of  a  strange  beauty  and  welrdness 
quite  unlike  any  other  popular  songs  of  Eu- 
rope; and  for  centuries  professional  singers 
had  been  wandering  about  the  country  teaching 
these  songs  to  the  accompaniment  of  a  kind  of 
biwa  called  Kantela.  The  scholars  of  the  Univer- 
sity began  to  collect  these  songs  from  the  mouths 
of  the  peasants  and  musicians — at  first  with  great 
difficulty,  afterwards  with  much  success.  The  dif- 
ficulty was  a  very  curious  one.  In  Finland  the 
ancient  pagan  religion  had  really  never  died;  the 
songs  of  the  peasants  were  full  of  allusions  to  the 
old  faith  and  the  old  gods,  and  the  orthodox 
church  had  often  attempted  in  vain  to  prevent  the 
singing  of  these  songs,  because  they  were  not 
Christian.  So  the  peasants  at  first  thought  that 
the  scholars  who  wanted  to  copy  the  songs  were 
government  spies  or  church  spies  who  wanted  evi- 
dence to  justify  punishments.  When  the  fears  of 
the  people  had  been  removed  and  when  they  came 
to  understand  that  the  questioners  were  only  schol- 
ars interested  in  literary  beauty,  all  the  secret 
stores  of  songs  were  generously  openea,  and  an 
immense  collection  of  oral  literature  was  amassed 
in  the  University  at  Helsingfors. 

The  greatest  of  the  scholars  engaged  in  the 
subsequent  work  of  arranging  and  classifying  was 
Doctor  Lonnrot.  While  examining  the  manu- 
script of  these  poems  he  was  struck  by  the  fact 
that,  put  together  in  a  particular  order,  they  nat.- 


230  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

urally  made  one  great  continuous  story  or  epic. 
Was  it  possible  that  the  Finnish  people  had  had 
during  all  these  centuries  an  epic  unknown  to  the 
world  of  literature?  Many  persons  would  have 
ridiculed  the  idea.  But  Lonnrot  followed  up  that 
idea,  and  after  some  years'  study  he  disengaged 
from  all  that  mass  of  song  something  in  the  shape 
of  a  wonderful  epic,  the  epic  of  the  "Kalevala." 
Lonnrot  was  probably,  almost  certainly,  the  only 
one  who  had  even  understood  the  idea  of  an 
epic  of  this  kind.  The  peasants  did  not  know. 
They  only  had  the  fragments  of  the  whole; 
parts  of  the  poem  existed  in  one  province, 
parts  in  another;  no  Finnish  musician  had  ever 
known  the  whole.  The  whole  may  have  been 
made  first  by  Lonnrot.  At  all  events  he  was  the 
Homer  of  the  "Kalevala,"  and  it  was  fortunate 
for  Finland  that  he  happened  to  be  himself  both 
a  scholar  and  a  poet — qualifications  seldom  united 
in  the  same  person. 

What  is  the  "Kalevala"  as  we  now  possess  it? 
It  is  an  epic,  but  not  like  any  other  epic  in  the 
world,  for  the  subject  of  it  is  Magic.  We  might 
call  it  the  Epic  of  Magic.  It  is  the  story  of  how 
the  world  and  the  heaven  and  the  sun  and  the 
moon  and  the  stars,  the  elements  and  the  races  of 
living  creatures  and  all  other  things  were  created 
by  magic;  also  how  the  first  inhabitants  of  the 
world  lived,  and  loved,  and  fought.  But  there  is 
another  thing  to  be  said  in  a  general  way  about 


FINNISH  POETRY  231^ 

this  magic.  The  magic  of  "Kalevala"  is  not  like 
anything  else  known  by  that  name  in  European 
literature.  The  magic  of  "Kalevala"  is  entirely 
the  magic  of  words.  These  ancient  people  be- 
lieved in  the  existence  of  words,  by  the  utterance 
of  which  anything  might  be  accomplished.  In- 
stead of  buying  wood  and  hiring  carpenters,  you 
might  build  a  house  by  uttering  certain  magical 
words.  If  you  had  no  horse  and  wanted  to  travel 
rapidly,  you  could  make  a  horse  for  yourself  out 
of  bits  of  bark  and  old  sticks  by  uttering  over 
them  certain  magical  words.  But  this  was  not  all. 
Beings  of  intellect,  men  and  women,  whole  armies 
of  men,  in  fact,  might  be  created  in  a  moment  by 
the  utterance  of  these  mystical  words.  There  is 
the  real  subject  of  the  "Kalevala." 

I  told  you  that  the  epic  is  not  like  anything 
else  in  European  literature  and  not  like  anything 
else  in  the  world  as  to  the  subject.  But  this  is 
not  the  case  as  regards  the  verse.  The  verse  is 
not  like  Japanese  verse,  indeed,  but  it  comes 
nearer  to  it  than  any  other  European  verse  does. 
Of  course  even  in  Finnish  verse,  accents  mean  a 
great  deal,  and  accent  means  nothing  at  all  in 
Japanese  verse.  But  I  imagine  something  very 
much  like  Finnish  verse  might  be  written  in  Jap- 
anese, provided  that  in  reciting  it  a  slight  stress 
is  thrown  on  certain  syllables.  Of  course  you  know 
something  about  Longfellow's  "Hiawatha" — 
such  lines  as  these: 


232  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

And  the  evening  sun  descending 
Set  the  clouds  on  fire  with  redness, 
Burned  the  broad  sky  like  a  prairie, 
Left  upon  the  level  water 
One  long  track  and  trail  of  splendour, 
Down  whose  stream,  as  down  a  river, 
Westward,  westward  Hiawatha 
Sailed  into  the  fiery  sunset, 
Sailed  into  the  purple  vapours. 
Sailed  into  the  dusk  of  evening. 

You  will  observe  this  is  verse  of  eight  syllables 
with  four  trochees  to  a  line.  Now  it  is  perhaps 
as  near  to  Finnish  verse  as  English  verse  can  be 
made.  But  the  Finnish  verse  is  more  musical,  and 
it  is  much  more  flexible,  and  the  rules  of  it  can 
be  better  carried  out  than  in  English.  There  is 
much  more  to  be  thought  about  than  the  placing 
of  four  trochaic  feet  to  a  line.  Not  only  must 
the  verse  be  trochaic,  it  must  also  be  alliterative, 
and  it  must  also  be,  to  some  extent,  rhymed  verse 
— a  matter  which  Longfellow  did  not  take  into 
consideration.  That  would  have  doubled  his  dif- 
ficulty. To  make  verse  trochaic,  alliterative  and 
rhymed,  is  very  difficult  indeed — that  is,  to  do  it 
well.  Only  one  liberty  is  allowed;  it  is  not  neces- 
sary that  the  rhyme  shall  be  regular  and  constant; 
it  is  necessary  only  that  it  should  be  occasional. 
But  the  interest  of  Finnish  verse  does  not  end 
here.  I  have  not  yet  mentioned  the  most  im- 
portant law  of  Finnish  poetry — the  law  of  paral- 


FINNISH  POETRY  233 

lelism  or  repetition.  Parallelism  Is  the  better 
word.  It  means  the  repetition  of  a  thought  in  a 
slightly  modified  way.  It  is  parallelism  especially 
that  makes  so  splendid  the  English  translation  of 
the  Bible,  and  the  majesty  of  such  passages  in  the 
Book  of  Common  Prayer  as  the  Funeral  Service. 
So  that  Finnish  poetry  is  anything  but  very  simple. 
We  may  now  sum  it  up  thus — trochaic  verse  of 
eight  syllables,  with  alliteration  and  rhyme,  a 
caesura  in  the  same  part  of  every  line,  and  every 
line  reiterated  in  parallelism. 

A  little  above  I  mentioned  the  English  of  the 
Bible.  Long  ago  I  explained  why  that  English  is 
so  beautiful  and  so  strong.  But  remember  that 
much  of  the  best  of  the  Bible,  in  the  original  He- 
brew, was  not  prose  but  verse,  and  that  the  fine 
effects  have  been  produced  by  translating  the  verse 
into  musical  prose.  The  very  effect  can  be  pro- 
duced by  translating  the  "Kalevala"  into  prose. 
Occasionally  the  passages  are  of  surprising 
beauty,  and  they  are  always  of  surprising  strange- 
ness. 

It  is  in  parallelism  especially  that  Finnish  po- 
etry offers  a  contrast  to  Japanese,  but  there  is  no 
reason  whatever  why,  in  the  longer  poems  of 
Japanese  poetry,  parallelism  could  not  be  used. 
All  things  have  value  according  to  place  and  time,'^ 
and  this  has  value — provided  that  it  has  a  special 
eflfect  on  a  special  occasion.  All  through  the  "Kale- 
vala,"    all    through    five    hundred    pages,    large 


234  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

pages,  the  parallelism  is  carried  on,  and  yet  one 
never  gets  tired.  It  is  not  monotonous.  But  that 
is  because  the  subject  is  so  well  adapted  to  this 
form  of  poetry.  See  how  the  poem  opens,  when 
the  poet  begins  to  talk  about  what  he  is  going  to 
sing: 

"Anciently  my  father  sang  me  these  words  in 
hewing  the  handle  of  his  ax;  anciently  my  mother 
taught  me  these  words  as  she  turned  her  spindle. 
In  that  time  I  was  only  a  child,  a  little  child  at  the 
breast, — a  useless  little  being  creeping  upon  the 
floor  at  the  feet  of  its  nurse,  its  cheek  bedaubed 
with  milk.  And  there  are  other  words  which  1 
drew  from  the  spring  of  knowledge,  which  I 
found  by  the  wayside,  which  I  snatched  from  the 
heart  of  the  thickets,  which  I  detached  from  the 
branches  of  the  trees,  which  I  gathered  at  the 
edges  of  the  pastures — when,  in  my  Infancy,  I 
used  to  go  to  guard  the  flocks,  In  the  midst  of  the 
honey-streaming  meadows,  upon  the  gold-shining 
hills,  behind  the  black  Murikki,  behind  the  spotted 
Kimmo,  my  favourite  cows. 

"Also  the  cold  sang  the  songs,  the  rain  sang  me 
verses,  the  winds  of  heaven,  the  waves  of  the  sea 
made  me  hear  their  poems,  the  birds  instructed 
me  with  their  melodies,  the  long-haired  trees  in- 
vited me  to  their  concerts.  And  all  the  songs  I 
gathered  together,  I  rolled  them  up  in  a  skin,  I 
carried  them  away  In  my  beautiful  little  holiday 


FINNISH  POETRY  235 

sledge,  I  deposited  them  in  the  bottom  of  a  chest 
of  brass,  upon  the  highest  shelf  of  my  treasure 
house." 

Now  when  a  poem  opens  that  way  we  may  be 
sure  that  there  are  great  things  in  it;  and  some 
of  these  great  things  we  shall  read  about  pres- 
ently. The  "Kalevala"  is  full  of  wonderful  stories. 
But  in  the  above  quotation,  I  want  you  to  see  how 
multiple  it  is,  and  yet  it  is  beautiful.  Now  there 
is  a  very  interesting  thing  yet  to  tell  you  about  this 
parallelism.  Such  poems  as  those  of  the  "Kale- 
vala" have  always  to  be  sung  not  by  one  singer  but 
by  two.  The  two  singers  straddle  a  bench  facing 
each  other  and  hold  each  other's  hands.  Then 
they  sing  alternately,  each  chanting  one  line,  rock- 
ing back  and  forward,  pulling  each  other  to  and 
fro  as  they  sing — so  that  it  is  like  the  motion  of 
rowing.  One  chants  a  line  and  pulls  backward, 
then  the  other  chants  the  next  line  and  pulls  in  the 
opposite  direction.  Not  to  be  able  to  answer  at 
once  would  be  considered  a  great  disgrace;  and 
every  singer  has  to  be  able  to  improvise  as  well 
as  to  sing.  And  that  is  the  signification  of  the 
following  verse : 

"Put  thy  hand  to  my  hand — place  thy  fingers 
between  my  fingers — that  we  may  sing  of  the 
things  which  are." 

The  most  beautiful  story  In  this  wonderful  book 
Is  the  story  of  Kullervo.    It  was  after  reading  this 


236  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

story  that  Longfellow  imagined  his  story  of  the 
Strong  Man  Kwasind.  Kullervo  is  born  so  strong 
that  as  an  infant  he  breaks  his  cradle  to  pieces, 
and  as  a  boy  he  can  not  do  any  work,  for  all  the 
tools  and  instruments  break  In  his  grasp.  There- 
fore he  gives  a  great  deal  of  trouble  at  home  and 
has  to  go  out  into  the  world  to  seek  his  fortune. 
In  the  world,  of  course,  he  has  just  the  same  trou- 
ble ;  for  nobody  will  employ  him  very  long.  How- 
ever, the  story  of  Kullervo's  feats  of  strength, 
though  interesting,  need  not  now  concern  us.  The 
great  charm  of  this  composition  Is  in  the  descrip- 
tion of  a  mother's  love  which  it  contains.  Kul- 
lervo brought  misfortune  everywhere  simply  by 
his  strength  and  by  his  great  passions — at  last 
committing  a  terrible  crime,  causing  the  death  of 
his  own  sister,  whom  he  does  not  recognize.  He 
goes  back  home  In  desperation  and  remorse;  and 
there  everybody  regards  him  with  horror,  except 
only  his  mother.  She  alone  tries  to  console  him; 
she  alone  tells  him  that  repentance  may  bring  him 
rest.  He  then  proposes  to  go  away  and  amend 
his  wrong-doing  in  solitude.  But  first  he  bids  them 
all  goodbye,  and  the  episode  Is  characteristic. 

Kullervo,  the  son  of  Kalervo,  gets  him  ready 
to  depart;  he  goes  to  his  old  father  and  says: 
"Farewell  now,  O  my  dear  father.  Wilt  thou  re- 
gret me  bitterly,  when  thou  shalt  learn  that  I  am 
dead? — that  I  have  disappeared  from  among  the 
multitude  of  the  living? — that  I  no  longer  am 


FINNISH  POETRY  237 

one  of  the  members  of  thy  family?"  The  father 
answered:  "No,  certainly  I  will  not  regret  thee 
when  I  shall  hear  that  thou  art  dead.  Another 
son  perchance  will  be  born  to  me — a  son  who  will 
grow  up  better  and  wiser  than  thou." 

Kullervo,  son  of  Kalervo,  answered:  "And  I 
also  will  not  be  sorry  if  I  hear  that  thou  art  dead. 
Without  any  trouble  I  can  find  me  such  a  father 
as  thou — a  stone-hearted  father,  a  clay-mouthed 
father,  a  berry-eyed  father,  a  straw-bearded 
father,  a  father  whose  feet  are  made  of  the  roots 
of  the  willow  tree,  a  father  whose  flesh  is  decay- 
ing wood."  Why  does  Kullervo  use  these  ex- 
traordinary terms?  It  is  a  reference  to  magic — 
out  of  stone  and  clay  and  straw,  a  phantom  man 
can  be  made,  and  Kullervo  means  to  say  that  his 
father  is  no  more  to  him  than  a  phantom  father, 
an  unreal  father,  a  father  who  has  no  fatherly 
feeling.  His  brothers  and  sisters  all  questioned 
in  turn  if  they  will  be  sorry  to  hear  that  he  is  dead, 
make  the  same  cruel  answer;  and  he  replies  to 
them  with  the  same  angry  words.  But  it  is  very 
different  when  he  speaks  to  his  mother. 

For  to  his  mother  he  said — "Oh  my  sweet 
mother,  my  beautiful  nurse,  my  loved  protectress, 
wilt  thou  regret  me  bitterly  when  thou  shalt  learn 
that  I  am  dead,  that  I  have  disappeared  from  the 
multitude  of  the  living,  that  I  am  no  longer  one 
of  the  members  of  thy  family?" 

The  mother  made   answer:   "Thou  does   not 


238  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

comprehend  the  soul  of  the  mother — thou  canst 
not  understand  the  heart  of  the  mother.  As- 
suredly will  I  regret  thee  most  bitterly  when  I 
shall  learn  that  thou  art  dead,  that  thou  hast  dis- 
appeared from  among  the  multitude  of  the  living, 
that  thou  hast  ceased  to  be  one  of  the  members  of 
my  family.  Floods  of  tears  shall  1  weep  in  my 
chamber.  The  waves  of  tears  will  overflow  on 
the  floor.  And  upon  the  stairway  lamentably  shall 
I  weep;  and  in  the  stable  loudly  shall  I  sorrow. 
Upon  the  icy  ways  the  snow  shall  melt  under  my 
tears — under  my  tears  the  earth  of  the  roads  shall 
melt  away;  under  my  tears  new  meadow  grass 
shall  grow  up,  green  sprouting,  and  through 
that  grass  little  streams  shall  murmur  away." 
To  this  mother,  naturally,  Kullervo  says  no  un- 
kind words.  He  goes  away,  able  at  least  to  feel 
that  there  is  one  person  in  the  world  who  loves 
him  and  one  person  in  the  world  whom  he  loves. 
But  how  much  his  mother  really  loves  him  he  does 
not  yet  know;  he  will  know  that  later — it  forms 
the  most  beautiful  part  of  the  poem. 

"Kullervo  directed  his  steps  once  more  to  the 
home  of  his  fathers.  Desolate  he  found  it,  deso- 
late and  deserted;  no  person  advanced  to  salute 
him,  no  person  came  to  press  his  hand,  to  give 
him  welcome. 

"He  drew  near  to  the  hearth:  the  embers  were 
extinguished.  By  that  he  knew  that  his  mother 
had  ceased  to  be. 


FINNISH  POETRY  239 

"He  drew  near  to  the  fire-place,  and  the  stones 
of  the  fire-place  were  cold.  By  that  he  knew  that 
his  father  had  ceased  to  be. 

"He  turned  his  eyes  upon  the  floor  of  his  home; 
the  planks  of  the  floor  were  covered  with  dirt  and 
rubbish.  By  that  he  knew  that  his  sister  had 
ceased  to  be. 

"To  the  shore  of  the  sea  he  went;  the  boat  that 
used  to  be  there  was  there  no  longer.  By  that  he 
knew  that  his  brother  had  ceased  to  be. 

"Then  he  began  to  weep.  For  a  whole  day  he 
wept,  for  two  whole  days  he  wept;  then  he  cried 
aloud:  'O  my  mother,  O  my  sweet  mother,  what 
didst  thou  leave  thy  son  yet  in  the  world?  Alas! 
now  thou  canst  hear  me  no  longer;  and  it  is  in  vain 
that  I  stand  above  thy  tomb,  that  I  sob  over  the 
place  of  thine  eyebrows,  over  the  place  of  thy 
temples;  it  is  in  vain  that  I  cry  out  my  grief  above 
thy  dead  forehead.' 

"The  mother  of  Kullervo  awakened  in  her 
tomb,  and  out  of  the  depth  of  the  dust  she  spake 
to  him:  'I  have  left  the  dog  Mastif,  in  order  that 
thou  mayst  go  with  him  to  the  chase.  Take  there- 
fore the  faithful  dog,  and  go  with  him  into  the  wild 
forest,  into  the  dark  wilderness,  even  to  the  dwell- 
ing place,  far  away,  of  the  blue-robed  Virgins  of 
the  wood,  and  there  thou  wilt  seek  thy  nourish- 
ment, thou  wilt  ask  for  the  game  that  is  necessary 
to  thy  existence.'  " 

It  was  believed  that  there  was  a  particular  for- 


240  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

est  god,  who  protected  the  trees  and  the  wild 
things  of  the  wood.  The  hunter  could  be  suc- 
cessful in  the  chase  only  upon  condition  of  ob- 
taining his  favour  and  permission  to  hunt.  This 
explains  the  reference  to  the  abode  of  the  forest 
god.  But  Kullervo  can  not  go  far;  his  remorse 
takes  him  by  the  throat. 

"Kullervo,  son  of  Kalervo,  took  his  faithful 
dog,  and  directed  his  steps  toward  the  wild  for- 
est, toward  the  dark  wilderness.  But  when  he  had 
gone  only  a  little  way  he  found  himself  at  the  very 
place  where  he  had  outraged  the  young  girl,  where 
he  had  dishonoured  the  child  of  his  mother.  And 
all  things  there  mourned  for  her — all  things;  the 
soft  grass  and  the  tender  foliage,  and  the  little 
plants,  and  the  sorrowful  briars.  The  grass  was 
no  longer  green,  the  briars  no  longer  blossomed, 
the  leaves  and  the  plants  hung  withered  and  dry 
about  the  spot  where  the  virgin  had  been  dis- 
honoured, where  the  brother  had  dishonoured  his 
sister. 

"Kullervo  drew  forth  his  sword,  his  sharp- 
edged  sword;  a  long  time  he  looked  at  it,  turning 
it  in  his  hand,  and  asking  it  whether  it  would  feel 
no  pleasure  in  eating  the  flesh  of  the  man  thus 
loaded  with  infamy,  in  drinking  the  blood  of  the 
man  thus  covered  with  crime. 

"And  the  sword  knew  the  heart  of  the  man:  it 
understood  the  question  of  the  hero.  And  it  made 
answer  to  him  saying:  'Why  indeed  should  I  not 


FINNISH  POETRY  241 

gladly  devour  the  flesh  of  the  man  who  is  loaded 
with  infamy?  Why  indeed  should  I  not  drink 
with  pleasure  the  blood  of  the  man  who  is  bur- 
dened with  crime  ?  For  well  I  devoured  even  the 
flesh  of  the  innocent  man,  well  can  I  drink  even 
the  blood  of  the  man  who  is  free  from  crime.' 

"Then  Kullervo  fixed  his  sword  in  the  earth, 
with  the  handle  downwards  and  the  point  up- 
wards, and  he  threw  himself  upon  the  point,  and 
the  point  passed  through  all  the  depth  of  his 
breast. 

"This  was  the  end  of  all,  this  was  the  cruel 
destiny  of  Kullervo,  the  irrevocable  end  of  the 
son  of  the  heroes — the  death  of  the  'Man  of  Mis- 
fortune.' " 

You  can  see  how  very  much  unlike  other  West- 
ern poetry  this  poetry  is.  The  imagination  indeed 
is  of  another  race  and  another  time  than  those  to 
whose  literary  productions  we  have  become  ac- 
customed. But  there  is  beauty  here;  and  the 
strangeness  of  it  indicates  a  possible  literary  value 
by  which  any  literature  may  be  more  or  less  en- 
riched. Many  are  the  particular  episodes  which 
rival  the  beauty  and  strangeness  of  the  episode  of 
Kullervo;  and  I  wish  that  we  could  have  time  to 
quote  them.  But  I  can  only  refer  to  them.  There 
is,  for  example,  the  legend  of  the  invention  of 
music,  when  the  hero  Wainamoinen  (supposed  to 
represent  the  Spirit  of  the  Wind,  and  the  sound 
of  the  name  indicates  the  wailing  of  the  wind)  in- 


242  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

vents  the  first  musical  instrument.  In  no  other 
literature  is  there  anything  quite  like  this  except 
in  the  Greek  story  of  Orpheus.  Even  as  the  trees 
bent  down  their  heads  to  listen  to  the  song  of 
Orpheus,  and  as  the  wild  beasts  became  tamed  at 
the  sound,  and  as  the  very  stones  of  the  road  fol- 
lowed to  the  steps  of  the  musician,  so  is  it  in  the 
"Kalevala."  But  the  Finnish  Orpheus  is  the 
greater  magician.  To  hear  him,  the  sun  and  moon 
come  nearer  to  the  earth,  the  waves  of  the  sea 
stop  short,  bending  their  heads;  the  cataracts  of 
the  rivers  hang  motionless  and  silent;  the  fish  raise 
their  heads  above  the  water.  And  when  he  plays  a 
sad  melody,  all  nature  weeps  with  him,  even  the 
trees  and  the  stones  and  the  little  plants  by  the 
wayside.  And  his  own  tears  In  falling  become 
splendid  pearls  for  the  crowns  of  kings. 

Then  very  wonderful  too  is  the  story  of  the 
eternal  smith,  Ilmarlnen,  who  forged  the  founda- 
tions of  the  world,  forged  the  mountains,  forged 
the  blue  sky,  so  well  forging  them  that  nowhere 
can  be  seen  the  marks  of  the  pincer,  the  marks  of 
the  hammer,  the  heads  of  the  nails.  Working  in 
his  smithy  we  see  him  all  grime  and  black;  upon 
his  head  there  is  one  yard  deep  of  iron  firing,  upon 
his  shoulders  there  is  one  fathom  deep  of  soot — 
the  soot  of  the  forge;  for  he  seldom  has  time  to 
bathe  himself.  But  when  the  notion  takes  him 
to  get  married,  for  the  first  time  he  bathes  him- 
self, and  dresses  himself  handsomely;  then  he  be- 


FINNISH  POETRY  243 

comes  the  most  beautiful  of  men.  In  order  to  win 
his  wife  he  is  obliged  to  perform  miracles  of 
work;  yet  after  he  wins  her  she  is  killed  by  wild 
beasts.  Then  he  sets  to  work  to  forge  himself  a 
wife,  a  wife  of  silver,  a  bride  of  gold.  Very  beau- 
tiful she  is,  but  she  has  no  heart,  and  she  is  al- 
ways cold,  and  there  is  no  comfort  in  her;  even 
all  the  magic  of  the  world-maker  can  not  give  her 
a  warm  heart.  But  the  work  is  so  beautiful  that 
he  does  not  like  to  destroy  it.  So  he  takes  the 
wife  of  silver,  the  bride  of  gold,  to  the  wisest  of 
heroes,  Wainamoinen,  and  offers  her  to  him  as  a 
gift.  But  the  hero  will  have  no  such  gift,  "Throw 
her  back  into  your  forged  fire,  O  Ilmarinen,"  the 
hero  makes  answer — "What  greater  folly,  what 
greater  sorrow  can  come  upon  man  than  to  love 
a  wife  of  silver,  a  bride  of  gold?" 

This  pretty  story  needs  no  explanation;  the 
moral  is  simply  "Never  marry  for  money." 

Then  there  is  the  story  of  Lemminkainen  (this 
personality  suggested  the  Pau-puk-keewis  of 
Longfellow) — the  joyous,  reckless,  handsome, 
mischievous  pleasure-lover, — always  falling  into 
trouble,  because  he  will  not  follow  his  mother's  ad- 
vice, but  always  loved  by  her  in  spite  of  his  follies. 
The  mother  of  Lemminkainen  is  a  more  wonder- 
ful person  than  the  mother  of  KuUervo.  Her  son 
has  been  murdered,  thrown  into  a  river — the 
deepest  of  all  rivers,  the  river  of  the  dead,  the 
river  of  hell.     And  his  mother  goes  out  to  find 


244  '  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

him.  She  asks  the  trees  in  the  forest  to  tell  her 
where  her  son  is,  and  she  obliges  them  to  answer. 
But  they  do  not  know.  She  asks  the  grass,  the 
plants,  the  animals,  the  birds;  she  obliges  even 
the  road  upon  which  he  walked  to  talk  to  her; 
she  talks  to  the  stars  and  the  moon  and  the  sun. 
Only  the  sun  knows,  because  he  sees  everything; 
and  he  answers,  "Your  son  is  dead,  torn  to  pieces; 
he  has  been  thrown  into  the  river  of  Tuoni,  the 
river  of  hell,  the  river  of  the  dead."  But  the 
mother  does  not  despair.  Ilmarinen,  the  eternal 
smith,  must  make  for  her  a  rake  of  brass  with 
teeth  long  enough  to  reach  into  the  world  of  the 
dead,  into  the  bottom  of  the  abyss;  and  out  of  the 
abyss  she  brings  up  the  parts  of  the  torn  body  of 
her  son;  she  puts  them  together;  she  sings  over 
them  a  magic  song;  she  brings  her  son  to  life 
again,  and  takes  him  home.  But  for  a  long  time 
he  is  not  able  to  remember,  because  he  has  been 
dead.  After  a  long  time  he  gets  back  his  mem- 
ory— only  to  get  into  new  mischief  out  of  which 
his  mother  must  help  him  afresh. 

The  names  of  the  three  heroes  quoted  to  you 
represent  also  the  names  of  three  great  stories, 
out  of  the  many  stories  contained  in  the  epics. 
But  in  this  epic,  as  in  the  Indian  epics  (I  mean  the 
Sanskrit  epic),  there  is  much  more  than  stories. 
There  are  also  chapters  of  moral  instruction  of  a 
very  curious  kind — chapters  about  conduct,  the 
conduct  of  the  parents,  the  conduct  of  the  chil- 


FINNISH  POETRY  245 

dren,  the  conduct  of  the  husband,  the  conduct  of 
the  bride.  The  instructions  to  the  bride  are  con- 
tained in  the  twenty-third  Rune;  there  are  alto- 
gether fifty  Runes  in  the  book.  This  appears  to  me 
likely  to  interest  you,  for  it  is  written  in  relation 
to  a  family  system  not  at  all  like  the  family  sys- 
tem of  the  rest  of  Europe.  I  think  you  will  find 
in  it  not  a  little  that  may  remind  you  of  Chinese 
teaching  on  the  same  subject — the  conduct  of  the 
daughter-in-law.  But  there  are  of  course  many 
differences,  and  the  most  pleasing  difference  is  the 
tone  of  great  tenderness  in  which  the  Instructions 
are  given.    Let  us  quote  some  of  them: 

*'0  young  bride,  O  my  young  sister,  O  my  well 
beloved  and  beautiful  young  flower,  listen  to  the 
words  which  I  am  going  to  speak  to  you,  harken 
to  the  lesson  which  I  am  going  to  teach  you.  You 
are  going  now  very  far  away  from  us,  O  beautiful 
flower ! — you  are  going  to  take  a  long  journey,  O 
my  wild-strawberry  fruit!  you  are  about  to  fly 
away  from  us,  O  most  delicate  down!  you  are 
about  to  leave  us  forever,  O  velvet  tissue — far 
away  from  this  habitation  you  must  go,  far  away 
from  this  beautiful  house,  to  enter  another  house, 
to  enter  Into  a  strange  family.  And  in  that  strange 
house  your  position  will  be  very  different.  There 
you  will  have  to  walk  about  with  care,  to  conduct 
yourself  with  prudence,  to  conduct  yourself  with 
thoughtfulness.  There  you  will  not  be  able,  as  In 
the  house  of  your  father,  as  In  the  dwelling  of 


246  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

your  mother,  to  run  about  where  you  please,  to 
run  singing  through  the  valleys,  to  warble  out  your 
songs  upon  the  roadway. 

"New  habits  you  must  now  learn,  and  forget 
all  the  old.  You  must  abandon  the  love  of  your 
father  and  content  yourself  with  the  love  of  your 
father-in-law;  you  must  bow  very  low,  you  must 
learn  to  be  generous  in  the  use  of  courteous  words. 
You  must  give  up  old  habits  and  form  new  ones; 
you  must  resign  the  love  of  your  mother  and  con- 
tent yourself  with  the  love  of  your  step-mother: 
lower  must  you  bow,  and  you  must  learn  to  be 
lavish  in  the  use  of  kindly  words. 

"New  habits  you  must  learn  and  forget  the  old: 
you  must  leave  behind  you  the  friendship  of  your 
brother,  and  content  yourself  with  the  friendship 
of  your  brother-in-law;  you  must  bow  lower  than 
you  do  now;  you  must  learn  to  be  lavish  of  kindly 
words. 

"New  habits  you  must  acquire  and  forget  the 
old  ones;  you  must  leave  behind  you  the  friend- 
ship of  your  sister,  and  be  satisfied  with  the  friend- 
ship of  your  sister-in-law;  you  must  learn  to  make 
humble  reverence,  to  bow  low,  to  be  generous  in 
kindly  words. 

"If  the  old  man  in  the  corner  be  to  you  even  like 
a  wolf,  if  the  old  woman  in  her  corner  be  to  you 
even  as  a  she-bear  in  the  house,  if  the  brother-in- 
law  be  to  you  even  as  a  serpent  upon  the  threshold, 
if  the  sister-in-law  be  to  you  even  as  a  sharp  nail, 


FINNISH  POETRY  247 

none  the  less  you  must  show  them  each  and  all 
exactly  the  same  respect  and  the  same  obedience 
that  you  have  been  accustomed  to  display  to  your 
father,  to  display  to  your  mother,  under  the  roof 
of  your  childhood  home." 

Then  follows  a  really  terrible  list  of  the  duties 
that  she  must  perform  every  day  from  early  morn- 
ing until  late  at  night;  to  mention  them  all  would 
take  too  long.  I  quote  only  a  few,  enough  to 
show  that  the  position  of  a  Finnish  wife  was  by 
no  means  an  easy  one. 

"So  soon  as  the  cock  crows  in  the  morning  you 
must  be  quick  to  rise;  you  must  keep  your  ears 
awake  to  hear  the  cry  of  the  cock.  And  if  there 
be  no  cock,  or  the  cock  does  not  crow,  then  let  the 
moon  be  as  a  cock  for  you,  let  the  constellation  of 
the  great  Bear  tell  you  when  it  is  time  to  rise. 
Then  you  must  quickly  make  the  fire,  skilfully 
removing  the  ashes,  without  sprinkling  them  upon 
the  floor.  Then  quickly  go  to  the  stable,  clean  the 
stable,  take  food  to  the  cattle,  feed  all  the  animals 
on  the  farm.  For  already  the  cow  of  your  mother- 
in-law  will  be  lowing  for  food;  the  horse  of  your 
father-in-law  will  be  whinnying;  the  milch  cow  of 
your  sister-in-law  will  be  straining  at  her  tether; 
the  calf  of  your  brother-in-law  will  be  bleating; 
for  all  will  be  waiting  for  her  whose  duty  it  is  to 
give  them  hay,  whose  duty  it  is  to  give  them 
food." 

Like  instructions  are  given  about  feeding  the 


248  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

younger  animals  and  the  fowls  and  the  little  pigs. 
But  she  must  not  forget  the  children  of  the  house 
at  the  same  time : 

"When  you  have  fed  the  animals  and  cleaned 
the  stables  come  back  quickly,  quickly  as  a  snow- 
storm. For  in  the  chamber  the  little  child  has 
awakened  and  has  begun  to  cry  in  his  cradle.  He 
cannot  speak,  poor  little  one;  he  cannot  tell  you, 
if  he  be  hungry  or  if  he  be  cold,  or  if  anything 
extraordinary  has  happened  to  him,  before  some- 
one that  he  knows  has  come  to  care  for  him,  be- 
fore he  hears  the  voice  of  his  own  mother." 

After  enumerating  and  inculcating  in  the  same 
manner  all  the  duties  of  the  day,  the  conduct  to 
be  observed  toward  every  member  of  the  family — 
father-in-law,  mother-in-law,  sister,  and  brother- 
in-law,  and  the  children  of  them — we  find  a  very 
minute  code  of  conduct  set  forth  in  regard  to 
neighbours  and  acquaintances.  The  young  wife 
is  especially  warned  against  gossip,  against  listen- 
ing to  any  stories  about  what  happens  in  other 
people's  houses,  and  against  telling  anybody  what 
goes  on  within  her  own.  One  piece  of  advice  is 
memorable.  If  the  young  wife  is -asked  whether 
she  is  well  fed,  she  should  reply  always  that  she 
has  the  best  of  everything  which  a  house  can  af- 
ford, this  even  if  she  should  have  been  left  with- 
out any  proper  nourishment  for  several  days.  Evi- 
dently the  condition  of  submission  to  which  Fin- 
nish women  were  reduced  by  custom  was  some- 


FINNISH  POETRY  249 

thing  much  less  merciful  than  has  ever  been  known 
in  Eastern  countries.  Only  a  very  generous  na- 
ture could  bear  such  discipline ;  and  we  have  many 
glimpses  in  the  poem  of  charming  natures  of  this 
kind. 

You  have  seen  that  merely  as  a  collection  of 
wonderful  stories  the  Kalevala  is  of  extraordinary 
interest,  that  it  is  also  of  interest  as  describing 
the  social  ethics  of  a  little  known  people — finally 
that  it  is  of  interest,  of  very  remarkable  interest, 
, merely  as  natural  poetry — poetry  treating  of  wild 
nature,  especially  rivers  and  forests  and  moun- 
tains, of  the  life  of  the  fisher  and  hunter  and  wood- 
cutter. Indeed,  so  far  as  this  kind  of  poetry  is 
concerned,  the  *'Kalevala"  stands  alone  among  the 
older  productions  of  European  poetry.  You  do 
not  find  this  love  of  nature  in  Scandinavian  poetry, 
nor  in  Anglo-Saxon  poetry,  nor  in  old  German 
poetry,  much  less  in  the  earlier  form  of  French, 
Italian,  or  Spanish  poetry.  The  old  Northern 
poetry  comes  nearest  to  it;  for  in  Anglo-Saxon 
composition  we  can  find  at  least  wonderful  de- 
scriptions of  the  sea,  of  stones,  of  the  hard  life 
of  sailors.  But  the  dominant  tone  in  Northern 
poetry  is  war;  it  is  in  descriptions  of  battle,  or  in 
accounts  of  the  death  of  heroes,  that  the  ancient 
English  or  ancient  Scandinavian  poets  excelled.  In 
Finnish  poetry,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  little 
or  nothing  about  war.  These  peaceful  people 
never  had  any  warlike  history;  their  life  was  agri- 


250  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

cultural  for  the  most  part,  with  little  or  no  vio- 
lence except  such  as  the  excitement  of  hunting  and 
fishing  could  produce.  Therefore  they  had  plenty 
of  time  to  think  about  nature,  to  love  nature  and 
to  describe  it  as  no  other  people  of  the  same 
period  described  it.  Striking  comparisons  have 
been  made  between  the  Anglo-Saxon  Runes,  or 
charm  songs,  and  Finnish  songs  of  the  same  kind, 
which  fully  illustrate  this  difference.  Like  the 
Finns,  the  early  English  had  magical  songs  to  the 
gods  of  nature — songs  for  the  healing  of  wounds 
and  the  banishing  of  sickness.  But  these  are  very 
commonplace.  Not  one  of  them  can  compare  as 
poetry  with  the  verses  of  the  Finnish  on  the  same 
subject.  Here  are  examples  in  evidence.  The 
first  is  a  prayer  said  when  offering  food  to  the 
Spirit  of  the  forest,  that  he  might  aid  the  hunter 
in  his  hunting. 

"Look,  O  Kuntar,  a  fat  cake,  a  cake  with 
honey,  that  I  may  propitiate  the  forest,  that  I  may 
propitiate  the  forest,  that  I  may  entice  the  thick 
forest  for  the  day  of  my  hunting,  when  I  go  In 
search  of  prey.  Accept  my  salt,  O  wood,  accept 
my  porridge,  O  Tapio,  dear  king  of  the  wood 
with  the  hat  of  leaves,  with  the  beard  of  moss." 

And  here  is  a  little  prayer  to  the  goddess  of 
water  repeated  by  a  sick  man  taking  water  as  a 
medicine. 

"O  pure  water,  O  Lady  of  the  Water,  now  do 
thou  make  me  whole,  lovely  as  before !  for  this 


FINNISH  POETRY  251 

I  beg  thee  dearly,  and  in  offering  I  give  thee  blood 
to  appease  thee,  salt  to  propitiate  thee !" 

Or  this: 

"Goddess  of  the  Sea,  mistress  of  waters,  Queen 
of  a  hundred  caves,  arouse  the  scaly  flocks,  urge 
on  the  fishy-crowds  forth  from  their  hiding  places, 
forth  from  the  muddy  shrine,  forth  from  the  net- 
hauling,  to  the  nets  of  a  hundred  fishers !  Take 
now  thy  beauteous  shield,  shake  the  golden  water, 
with  which  thou  frightenest  the  fish,  and  direct 
them  toward  the  net  beneath  the  dark  level,  above 
the  borders  black." 

Yet  another: 

"O  vigorous  mistress  of  the  wild  beasts,  sweet 
lady  of  the  earth,  come  with  me,  be  with  me, 
where  I  go.  Come  thou  and  good  luck  bring  me, 
to  happy  fortune  help  me.  Make  thou  to  move 
the  foliage,  the  fruit  tree  to  be  shaken,  and  the 
wild  beasts  drive  thither,  the  largest  and  the 
smallest,  with  their  snouts  of  every  kind,  with 
their  paws  of  fur  of  all  kinds!" 

Now  when  you  look  at  these  little  prayers,  when 
you  read  them  over  and  observe  how  pretty  they 
are,  you  will  also  observe  that  they  make  little 
pictures  In  the  mind.  Can  not  you  see  the  fish  glid- 
ing over  the  black  border  under  the  dark  level  of 
the  water,  to  the  net  of  a  hundred  fishers?  Can 
you  not  see  the  "dear  king  of  the  wood,"  with 
his  hat  of  leaves  and  his  beard  of  moss?  Can  you 
not  also  see  in  Imagination  the  wild  creatures  of 


252  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

the  forest  with  their  snouts  of  many  shapes,  with 
their  fur  of  all  kinds  ?  But  in  Anglo-Saxon  poetry 
you  will  not  find  anything  like  that.  Anglo-Saxon 
Rune  songs  create  no  images.  It  is  this  pictur- 
esqueness,  this  actuality  of  imagery  that  is  dis- 
tinctive in  Finnish  poetry. 

In  the  foregoing  part  of  the  lecture  I  have 
chiefly  tried  to  interest  you  in  the  "Kalevala.'* 
But  aside  from  interesting  you  in  the  book  itself  as 
a  story,  as  a  poem,  I  hope  to  direct  your  attention 
to  a  particular  feature  in  Finnish  poetry  which  Is 
most  remote  from  Japanese  poetry.  I  have 
spoken  of  resemblances  as  to  structure  and 
method;  but  it  is  just  in  that  part  of  the  method 
most  opposed  to  Japanese  tradition  that  the  great- 
est interest  lies.  1  do  not  mean  only  the  use  of 
natural  imagery;  I  mean  much  more  the  use  of 
parallelism  to  reinforce  that  imagery.  That  Is 
the  thing  especially  worthy  of  literary  study.  In- 
deed, I  think  that  such  study  might  greatly  help 
towards  a  new  development,  a  totally  new  depart- 
ure in  Japanese  verse.  In  another  lecture  I  spoke 
as  sincerely  as  I  could  of  the  very  high  merit  In 
the  epigrammatic  forms  of  Japanese  poetry. 
These  brief  forms  of  poetry  have  been  developed 
In  Japan  to  perfection  not  equalled  elsewhere  in 
modern  poetry,  perhaps  not  surpassed,  in  some 
respects,  even  by  Greek  poetry  of  the  same  kind. 
But  there  can  be  no  doubt  of  this  fact,  that  a  na- 
tional literature  requires  many  other  forms  of  ex- 


FINNISH  POETRY  253 

pression  than  the  epigrammatic  form.  Nothing 
that  Is  good  should  ever  be  despised  or  cast  aside ; 
but  because  of  its  excellences,  we  should  not  be 
blind  to  the  possibility  of  other  excellences.  Now- 
Japanese  literature  has  other  forms  of  poetry — 
forms  In  which  it  is  possible  to  produce  poems  of 
immense  length,  but  the  spirit  of  epigrammatic 
poetry  has  really  been  controlling  even  these  to 
a  great  degree. 

I  mean  that  so  far  as  I  am  able  to  understand 
the  subject,  the  tendency  of  all  Japanese  poetry  is 
to  terse  expression.  Were  it  not  well  therefore 
to  consider  at  least  the  possible  result  of  a  totally 
opposite  tendency, — expansion  of  fancy,  luxuri- 
ance of  expression?  Terseness  of  expression, 
pithiness,  condensation,  are  of  vast  importance  in 
prose,  but  poetry  has  other  methods,  and  the 
*'KalevaIa"  is  one  of  the  best  possible  object  les- 
sons in  the  study  of  such  methods,  because  of  the 
very  simplicity  and  naturalness  with  which  they  are 
followed. 

Of  course  there  was  parallelism  In  Western 
poetry,  and  all  arts  of  repetition,  before  anybody 
knew  anything  about  the  *'Kalevala."  The  most 
poetical  part  of  Bible  English,  as  I  said,  whether 
in  the  Bible  itself  or  In  the  Book  of  Common 
Prayer,  depends  almost  entirely  for  Its  literary 
effect  upon  parallelism,  because  the  old  Hebrews, 
like  the  old  Finns,  practised  this  art  of  expression. 
Loosely  and  vaguely  it  was  practised  also  by  many 


254  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

poets  almost  unconsciously,  who  had  been  particu- 
larly influenced  by  the  splendour  of  the  scriptural 
translation.  It  had  figured  in  prose-poetry  as 
early  as  the  time  of  Sir  Thomas  Browne.  It  had 
established  quite  a  new  idea  of  poetry  even  in 
America,  where  the  great  American  poet  Poe  in- 
troduced it  into  his  compositions  before  Longfel- 
low studied  the  "Kalevala."  1  told  you  that  the 
work  of  Poe,  small  as  it  is,  had  influenced  almost 
every  poet  of  the  great  epoch,  including  Tenny- 
son and  the  Victorian  masters.  But  the  work  even 
of  Poe  was  rather  instinctive  than  the  result  of 
any  systematic  idea.  The  systematic  idea  was 
best  illustrated  when  the  study  of  the  "Kalevala" 
began. 

Let  us  see  how  Longfellow  used  the  suggestion ; 
but  remember  that  he  was  only  a  beginner,  deal- 
ing with  something  entirely  new — that  he  did  not 
have  the  strength  of  Tennyson  nor  the  magical 
genius  of  Swinburne  to  help  him.  He  worked 
very  simply,  and  probably  very  rapidly.  There  is 
a  good  deal  of  his  song  of  "Hiawatha"  that  is 
scarcely  worthy  of  praise,  and  it  is  difficult  to 
quote  effectively  from  it,  because  the  charm  of  the 
thing  depends  chiefly  upon  its  reading  as  a  whole. 
Nevertheless  there  are  parts  which  so  well  show 
or  imitate  the  Finnish  spirit,  that  I  must  try  to 
quote  them.  Take  for  instance  the  teaching  of 
the  little  Indian  child  by  his  grandmother — such 


V 


FINNISH  POETRY  255 

verses  as  these,  where  she  talks  to  the  little  boy 
about  the  milky  way  in  the  sky : 

Many  things  Nokomis  taught  him 
Of  the  stars  that  shine  in  heaven; 
Showed  him  Ishkoodah,  the  comet, 
Ishkoodah,  with  fiery  tresses; 
Showed  the  Death-Dance  of  the  spirits. 
Warriors  with  their  plumes  and  war-clubs, 
Flaring  far  away  to  northward 
In  the  frosty  nights  of  Winter ; 
Showed  the  broad,  white  road  in  heaven. 
Pathway  of  the  ghosts,  the  shadows. 
Running  straight  across  the  heavens. 
Crowded  with  the  ghosts,  the  shadows. 

Or  take  again  the  story  of  the  origin  of  the 
flower  commonly  called  "Dandelion" : 

In  his  life  he  had  one  shadow. 

In  his  heart  one  sorrow  had  he. 

Once,  as  he  was  gazing  northward, 

Far  away  upon  a  prairie 

He  beheld  a  maiden  standing. 

Saw  a  tall  and  slender  maiden 

All  alone  upon  a  prairie ; 

Brightest  green  were  all  her  garments 

And  her  hair  was  like  the  sunshine. 

Day  by  day  he  gazed  upon  her. 

Day  by  day  he  sighed  with  passion. 

Day  by  day  his  heart  within  him 

Grew  more  hot  with  love  and  longing 

For  the  maid  with  yellow  tresses. 


256  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

Observe  how  the  repetition  served  to  represent 
the  growing  of  the  lover's  admiration.  The  same 
repetition  can  be  used  much  more  effectively  In 
describing  weariness  and  pain,  as  in  the  lines  about 
the  winter  famine : 

Oh,  the  long  and  dreary  Winter! 

Oh,  the  cold  and  cruel  Winter! 

Ever  thicker,  thicker,  thicker 

Froze  the  ice  on  lake  and  river, 

Ever  deeper,  deeper,  deeper 

Fell  the  snow  o'er  all  the  landscape, 

Fell  the  covering  snow,  and  drifted 

Through  the  forest,  round  the  village. 

Hardly  from  his  buried  wigwam 

Could  the  hunter  force  a  passage; 

With  his  mittens  and  his  snow-shoes 

Vainly  walked  he  through  the  forest. 

Sought  for  bird  or  beast  and  found  none. 

Saw  no  track  of  deer  or  rabbit, 

In  the  snow  beheld  no  footprints, 

In  the  ghastly,  gleaming  forest 

Fell,  and  could  not  rise  from  weakness, 

Perished  there  from  cold  and  hunger. 

Oh,  the  famine  and  the  fever! 

Oh,  the  wasting  of  the  famine! 

Oh,  the  blasting  of  the  fever! 

Oh,  the  wailing  of  the  children! 

Oh,  the  anguish  of  the  women ! 

All  the  earth  was  sick  and  famished ; 

Hungry  was  the  air  around  them. 

Hungry  was  the  sky  above  them. 


FINNISH  POETRY  257 

And  the  hungry  stars  in  heaven 

Like  the  eyes  of  wolves  glared  at  them! 

This  is  strong,  emotionally  strong,  though  it  is 
not  great  poetry;  but  it  makes  the  emotional  ef- 
fect of  great  poetry  by  the  use  of  the  same  means 
which  the  Finnish  poets  used.  The  best  part  of 
the  poem  is  the  famine  chapter,  and  the  next  best 
is  the  part  entitled  "The  Ghosts."  However,  the 
charm  of  a  composition  can  be  fully  felt  only  by 
those  who  understand  something  of  the  American 
Indian's  life  and  the  wild  northwestern  country 
described.  That  is  not  the  immediate  matter  to 
be  considered,  notwithstanding.  The  matter  to 
be  considered  is  whether  this  method  of  using  par- 
allelism and  repetition  and  alliteration  can  give 
new  and  great  results.  I  believe  that  it  can,  and 
that  a  greater  Longfellow  would  have  brought 
such  results  into  existence  long  ago.  Of  course, 
the  form  is  primitive;  it  does  not  follow  that  an 
English  poet  or  a  Japanese  poet  should  attempt 
only  a  return  to  primitive  methods  of  poetry  in 
detail.  The  detail  is  of  small  moment;  the  spirit 
is  everything.  Parallelism  means  simply  the  wish 
to  present  the  same  idea  under  a  variety  of  as- 
pects, instead  of  attempting  to  put  it  forward  in 
one  aspect  only.  Everything  great  in  the  way  of 
thought,  everything  beautiful  in  the  way  of  idea, 
has  many  sides.  It  is  merely  the  superficial 
which  we  can  see  from  the  front  only;  the  solid 
can  be  perceived  from  every  possible  direction, 


258  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

and   changes    shape    according   to   the    direction 
looked  at. 

The  great  master  of  English  verse,  Swinburne, 
is  also  a  poet  much  given  to  parallelism;  for  he 
has  found  it  of  incomparable  use  to  him  in  man- 
aging new  forms  of  verse.  He  uses  it  in  an  im- 
mense variety  of  ways — ways  impossible  to  Jap- 
anese poets  or  to  Finnish  poets;  and  the  splendour 
of  the  results  can  not  be  imitated  in  another  lan- 
guage. But  his  case  is  interesting.  The  most 
primitive  methods  of  Finnish  poetry,  and  of  an- 
cient poetry  in  general,  coming  into  his  hands,  are 
reproduced  into  music.  I  propose  to  make  a  few 
quotations,  in  illustration.  Here  are  some  lines 
from  "Atalanta  in  Calydon";  they  are  only  paral- 
lelisms, but  how  magnificent  they  are  ! 

When  thou  dravest  the  men 

Of  the  chosen  of  Thrace, 
None  turned  him  again, 

Nor  endured  he  thy  face 
Close  round  with  the  blush  of  the  battle, 
with  light  from  a  terrible  place. 

Look  again  at  the  following  lines  from  "A  Song 
In  Time  of  Revolution": 

There  is  none  of  them  all  that  is  whole;  their  lips  gape 

open  for  breath ; 
They  are  clothed  with  sickness  of  soul,  and  the  shape  of 

the  shadow  of  death. 


FINNISH  POETRY  259 

The  wind  is  thwart  in  their  feet ;  it  is  full  of  the  shouting 

of  mirth; 
As  one  shaketh  the  sides  of  a  sheet,  so  it  shaketh  the  ends 

of  the  earth. 

The  sword,  the  sword  is  made  keen ;  the  iron  has  opened 

its  mouth; 
The  corn  is  red  that  was  green ;  't  is  bound  for  the  sheaves 

of  the  south. 

The  sound  of  a  word  was  shed,  the  sound  of  the  wind  as 

a  breath, 
In  the  ears  of  the  souls  that  were  dead,  in  the  dust  of  the 

deepness  of  death. 

Where  the  face  of  the  moon  is  taken,  the  ways  of  the  stars 

undone. 
The  light  of  the  whole  sky  shaken,  the  light  of  the  face 

of  the  sun. 

Where  the  sword  was  covered  and  hidden,  and  dust  had 

grown  in  its  side, 
A  word  came  forth  which  was  bidden,  the  crying  of  one 

that  cried : 

The  sides  of  the  two-edged  sword  shall  be  bare,  and  its 

mouth  shall  be  red, 
For  the  breath  of  the  face  of  the  Lord  that  is  felt  in  the 

bones  of  the  dead. 

All  this  is  indeed  very  grand  compared  with 
anything  in  the  "Kalevala"  or  In  Longfellow's  ren- 
dering; but  do  you  not  see  that  the  grandeur  is 


26o  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

also  the  grandeur  of  parallelism?  Here  is  proof 
of  what  a  master  can  do  with  a  method  older  than 
Western  civilization.  But  what  is  the  inference? 
Is  it  not  that  the  old  primitive  poetry  contains 
something  of  eternal  value,  a  value  ranging  from 
the  lowest  even  to  the  highest,  a  value  that  can 
lend  beauty  equally  to  the  song  of  a  little  child  or 
to  the  thunder  of  the  grandest  epic  verse? 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE   MOST   BEAUTIFUL   ROMANCE    OF  THE 
MIDDLE    AGES 

The  value  of  romantic  literature,  which  has  been, 
so  far  as  the  Middle  Ages  are  concerned,  unjustly 
depreciated,  does  not  depend  upon  beauty  of 
words  or  beauty  of  fact.  To-day  the  Immense 
debt  of  modern  literature  to  the  literature  of  the 
Middle  Ages  Is  better  understood;  and  we  are 
generally  beginning  to  recognize  what  we  owe  to 
the  imagination  of  the  Middle  Ages,  in  spite  of 
the  ignorance,  the  superstition  and  the  cruelty  of 
that  time.  If  the  evils  of  the  Middle  Ages  had 
really  been  universal,  those  ages  could  not  have 
imparted  to  us  lessons  of  beauty  and  lessons  of 
nobility  having  nothing  to  do  with  literary  form 
in  themselves,  yet  profoundly  affecting  modern  po- 
etry of  the  highest  class.  No;  there  was  very 
much  of  moral  goodness  as  well  as  of  moral  bad- 
ness in  the  Middle  Ages;  and  what  was  good  hap- 
pened to  be  very  good  indeed.  Commonly  it  used 
to  be  said  (though  I  do  not  think  any  good  critic 
would  say  it  now)  that  the  fervid  faith  of  the 
time  made  the  moral  beauty.     Unless  we  modify 

361 


262  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

this  statement  a  great  deal,  we  can  not  now  accept 
it  at  all.  There  was  indeed  a  religious  beauty, 
particularly  mediaeval,  but  it  was  not  that  which 
created  the  romance  of  the  period.  Indeed,  that 
romantic  literature  was  something  of  a  reaction 
against  the  religious  restraint  upon  imagination. 
But  if  we  mean  by  mediaeval  faith  only  that  which 
is  very  much  older  than  any  European  civilization, 
and  which  does  not  belong  to  the  West  any  more 
than  to  the  East — the  profound  belief  in  human 
moral  experience — then  I  think  that  the  statement 
is  true  enough.  At  no  time  in  European  history 
were  men  more  sincere  believers  in  the  value  of 
certain  virtues  than  during  the  Middle  Ages — 
and  the  very  best  of  the  romances  are  just  those 
romances  which  illustrate  that  belief,  though  not 
written  for  a  merely  ethical  purpose. 

But  I  can  not  better  illustrate  what  I  mean  than 
by  telling  a  story,  which  has  nothing  to  do  with 
Europe,  or  the  Middle  Ages,  or  any  particular 
form  of  religious  belief.  It  is  not  a  Christian 
story  at  all;  and  it  could  not  be  told  you  exactly 
as  written,  for  there  are  some  very  curious  pages 
in  it.  But  it  is  a  good  example  of  the  worth  that 
may  lie  in  a  mere  product  of  imagination. 

There  was  a  king  once,  in  Persia  or  Arabia, 
who,  at  the  time  of  his  accession  to  power,  dis- 
covered a  wonderful  subterranean  hall  under  the 
garden  of  his  palace.  In  one  chamber  of  that 
hall  stood  six  marvellous  statues  of  young  girls. 


A  MEDIEVAL  ROMANCE         263 

each  statue  being  made  out  of  a  single  diamond. 
The  beauty  as  well  as  the  cost  of  the  work  was 
beyond  imagination.  But  in  the  midst  of  the 
statues,  which  stood  in  a  circle,  there  was  an  empty 
pedestal,  and  on  that  pedestal  was  a  precious 
casket  containing  a  letter  from  the  dead  father 
of  the  king.    The  letter  said: 

"O  my  son,  though  these  statues  of  girls  are 
indeed  beyond  all  praise,  there  is  yet  a  seventh 
statue  incomparably  more  precious  and  beautiful 
which  I  could  not  obtain  before  I  died.  It  is  now 
your  duty,  O  my  son,  to  obtain  that  statue,  that  it 
may  be  placed  upon  the  seventh  pedestal.  Go, 
therefore,  and  ask  my  favourite  slave,  who  is  still 
alive,  how  you  are  to  obtain  it."  Then  the  young 
king  went  in  all  haste  to  that  old  slave,  who  had 
been  his  father's  confidant,  and  showed  him  the 
letter.  And  the  old  man  said,  "Even  now,  O  mas- 
ter, I  will  go  with  you  to  find  that  statue.  But  it 
is  in  one  of  the  three  islands  in  which  the  genii 
dwell;  and  it  is  necessary,  above  all  things,  that 
you  do  not  fear,  and  that  you  obey  my  instructions 
in  all  things.  Also,  remember  that  if  you  make 
a  promise  to  the  Spirits  of  that  land,  the  promise 
must  be  kept." 

And  they  proceeded  upon  their  journey  through 
a  great  wilderness,  in  which  "nothing  existed  but 
grass  and  the  presence  of  God."  I  can  not  try 
now  to  tell  you  about  the  wonderful  things  that 
happened  to  them,  nor  about  the  marvellous  boat, 


264  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

rowed  by  a  boatman  having  upon  his  shoulders 
the  head  of  an  elephant.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  at 
last  they  reached  the  palace  of  the  king  of  the 
Spirits;  and  the  king  came  to  meet  them  in  the 
form  of  a  beautiful  old  man  with  a  long  white 
beard.  And  he  said  to  the  young  king,  "My  son, 
I  will  gladly  help  you,  as  I  helped  your  father; 
and  I  will  give  you  that  seventh  statue  of  diamond 
which  you  desire.  But  I  must  ask  for  a  gift  in 
return.  You  must  bring  to  me  here  a  young  girl, 
of  about  sixteen  years  old;  and  she  must  be  very 
intelligent;  and  she  must  be  a  true  maiden,  not  only 
as  to  her  body,  but  as  to  her  soul,  and  heart,  and 
all  her  thoughts."  The  young  king  thought  that 
was  a  very  easy  thing  to  find,  but  the  king  of  the 
Spirits  assured  him  that  it  was  not,  and  further 
told  him  this,  "My  son,  no  mortal  man  is  wise 
enough  to  know  by  his  own  wisdom  the  purity  that 
is  in  the  heart  of  a  young  girl.  Only  by  the  help 
of  this  magical  mirror,  which  I  now  lend  you,  will 
you  be  able  to  know.  Look  at  the  reflection  of  any 
maiden  in  this  mirror,  and  then,  if  her  heart  is 
perfectly  good  and  pure,  the  mirror  will  remain 
bright.  But  if  there  be  any  fault  in  her,  the  mirror 
will  grow  dim.     Go  now,  and  do  my  bidding." 

You  can  imagine,  of  course,  what  happened 
next.  Returning  to  his  kingdom,  the  young  king 
had  brought  before  him  many  beautiful  girls,  the 
daughters  of  the  noblest  and  highest  in  all  the 
cities  of  the  land.    But  in  no  case  did  the  mirror 


A  MEDIAEVAL  ROMANCE         265 

remain  perfectly  clear  when  the  ghostly  test  was 
applied.  For  three  years  in  vain  the  king  sought; 
then  in  despair  he  for  the  first  time  turned  his 
attention  to  the  common  people.  And  there  came 
before  him  on  the  very  first  day  a  rude  man  of  the 
desert,  who  said,  "1  know  of  just  such  a  girl  as  you 
want."  Then  he  went  forth  and  presently  re- 
turned with  a  simple  girl  from  the  desert,  who  had 
been  brought  up  in  the  care  of  her  father  only, 
and  had  lived  with  no  other  companion  than  the 
members  of  her  own  family  and  the  camels  and 
horses  of  the  encampment.  And  as  she  stood  in 
her  poor  dress  before  the  king,  he  saw  that  she 
was  much  more  beautiful  than  any  one  whom  he 
had  seen  before;  and  he  questioned  her,  only  to 
find  that  she  was  very  intelligent;  and  she  was  not 
at  all  afraid  or  ashamed  of  standing  before  the 
king,  but  looked  about  her  with  large  wondering 
eyes,  like  the  eyes  of  a  child;  and  whoever  met 
that  innocent  gaze,  felt  a  great  joy  in  his  heart, 
and  could  not  tell  why.  And  when  the  king  had 
the  mirror  brought,  and  the  reflection  of  the  girl 
was  thrown  upon  it,  the  mirror  became  much 
brighter  than  before,  and  shone  like  a  great  moon. 
There  was  the  maid  whom  the  Spirit-king 
wished  for.  The  king  easily  obtained  her  from 
her  parents;  but  he  did  not  tell  her  what  he  in- 
tended to  do  with  her.  Now  it  was  his  duty  to 
give  her  to  the  Spirits;  but  there  was  a  condition 
he  found  very  hard  to  fulfil.     By  the  terms  of  his 


266  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

promise  he  was  not  allowed  to  kiss  her,  to  caress 
her,  or  even  to  see  her,  except  veiled  after  the 
manner  of  the  country.  Only  by  the  mirror  had 
he  been  able  to  know  how  fair  she  was.  And  the 
voyage  was  long;  and  on  the  way,  the  girl,  who 
thought  she  was  going  to  be  this  king's  bride, 
became  sincerely  attached  to  him,  after  the  man- 
ner of  a  child  with  a  brother;  and  he  also  in  his 
heart  became  much  attached  to  her.  But  it  was 
his  duty  to  give  her  up.  At  last  they  reached  the 
palace  of  the  Spirit-king;  and  the  figure  of  the  old 
man  came  forth  and  said,  "My  son,  you  have  done 
well  and  kept  your  promise.  This  maiden  is  all 
that  I  could  have  wished  for;  and  I  accept  her. 
Now  when  you  go  back  to  your  palace,  you  will 
find  on  the  seventh  pedestal  the  statue  of  the 
diamond  which  your  father  desired  you  to  obtain." 
And,  with  these  words,  the  Spirit-king  vanished, 
taking  with  him  the  girl,  who  uttered  a  great  and 
piercing  cry  to  heaven  at  having  been  thus  de- 
ceived. Very  sorrowfully  the  young  king  then 
began  his  journey  home.  All  along  the  way  he 
kept  regretting  that  girl,  and  regretting  the  cru- 
elty which  he  had  practised  in  deceiving  her  and 
her  parents.  And  he  began  to  say  to  himself, 
"Accursed  be  the  gift  of  the  king  of  the  Spirits  1 
Of  what  worth  to  me  is  a  woman  of  diamond  any 
more  than  a  woman  of  stone?  What  is  there  in 
all  the  world  half  so  beautiful  or  half  so  precious 


A  MEDIiEVAL  ROMANCE         267 

as  a  living  girl  such  as  I  discovered?  Fool  that  I 
was  to  give  her  up  for  the  sake  of  a  statue !"  But 
he  tried  to  console  himself  by  remembering  that  he 
had  obeyed  his  dead  father's  wish. 

Still,  he  could  not  console  himself.  Reaching 
his  palace,  he  went  to  his  secret  chamber  to  weep 
alone,  and  he  wept  night  and  day,  in  spite  of  the 
efforts  of  his  ministers  to  comfort  him.  But  at 
last  one  of  them  said,  "O  my  king,  in  the  hall 
beneath  your  garden  there  has  appeared  a  won- 
derful statue  upon  the  seventh  pedestal;  perchance 
if  you  go  to  see  it,  your  heart  will  become  more 
joyful." 

Then  with  great  reluctance  the  king  properly 
dressed  himself,  and  went  to  the  subterranean 
hall. 

There  indeed  was  the  statue,  the  gift  of  the 
Spirit-king;  and  very  beautiful  it  was.  But  it  was 
not  made  of  diamond,  and  it  looked  so  strangely 
like  the  girl  whom  he  had  lost,  that  the  king's 
heart  leapt  in  his  breast  for  astonishment.  He 
put  out  his  hand  and  touched  the  statue,  and  found 
it  warm  with  life  and  youth.  And  a  sweet  voice 
said  to  him,  "Yes,  it  is  really  I — have  you  for- 
gotten?" 

Thus  she  was  given  back  to  him ;  and  the  Spirit- 
king  came  to  their  wedding,  and  thus  addressed 
the  bridegroom,  "O  my  son,  for  your  dead 
father's  sake  I  did  this  thing.    For  it  was  meant  to 


268  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

teach  you  that  the  worth  of  a  really  pure  and  per- 
fect woman  is  more  than  the  price  of  any  diamond 
or  any  treasure  that  the  earth  can  yield." 

Now  you  can  see  at  once  the  beauty  of  this 
story;  and  the  moral  of  it  is  exactly  the  same  as 
that  of  the  famous  verse,  in  the  Book  of  Prov- 
erbs, "Who  can  find  a  virtuous  woman?  for  her 
price  is  far  above  rubies."  But  it  is  simply  a  story 
from  the  "Arabian  Nights" — one  of  those  stories 
which  you  will  not  find  in  the  ordinary  European 
translations,  because  it  is  written  in  such  a  way 
that  no  English  translator  except  Burton  would 
have  dared  to  translate  it  quite  literally.  The  ob- 
scenity of  parts  of  the  original  does  not  really 
detract  in  the  least  from  the  beauty  and  tender- 
ness of  the  motive  of  the  story;  and  we  must  re- 
member that  what  we  call  moral  or  immoral  in 
style  depends  very  much  upon  the  fashion  of  an 
age  and  time. 

Now  it  is  exactly  the  same  kind  of  moral  charm 
that  distinguishes  the  best  of  the  old  English  ro- 
mances— a  charm  which  has  nothing  to  do  with 
the  style,  but  everything  to  do  with  the  feeling 
and  suggestion  of  the  composition.  But  in  some 
of  the  old  romances,  the  style  too  has  a  very  great 
charm  of  quaintness  and  simplicity  and  sincerity 
not  to  be  imitated  to-day.  In  this  respect  the  older 
French  romances,  from  which  the  English  made 
their  renderings,  are  much  the  best.  And  the  best 
of  all  is  said  to  be  "Amis  and  Amile,"  which  the 


A  MEDIAEVAL  ROMANCE         269 

English    rendered    as    "Amicus    and    Amellus." 
Something  of  the  story  ought  to  Interest  you. 

The  whole  subject  of  this  romance  is  the  virtue 
of  friendship,  though  this  of  course  involves  a 
number  of  other  virtues  quite  as  distinguished. 
Amis  and  Amile,  that  is  to  say  Amicus  and  Ame- 
lius,  are  two  young  knights  who  at  the  beginning 
of  their  career  become  profoundly  attached  to 
each  other.  Not  content  with  the  duties  of  this 
natural  affection,  they  imposed  upon  themselves 
all  the  duties  which  chivalry  also  attached  to  the 
office  of  friend.  The  romance  tells  of  how  they 
triumphed  over  every  conceivable  test  to  which 
their  friendship  was  subjected.  Often  and  often 
the  witchcraft  of  woman  worked  to  separate  them, 
but  could  not.  Both  married,  yet  after  marriage 
their  friendship  was  just  as  strong  as  before. 
Each  has  to  fight  many  times  on  account  of  the 
other,  and  suffer  all  things  which  It  is  most  hard 
for  a  proud  and  brave  man  to  bear.  But  every- 
thing is  suffered  cheerfully,  and  the  friends  are 
such  true  knights  that,  In  all  their  trials,  neither 
does  anything  wrong,  or  commits  the  slightest 
fault  against  truth — until  a  certain  sad  day.  On 
that  day  it  Is  the  duty  of  Amis  to  fight  in  a  trial 
by  battle.  But  he  is  sick,  and  can  not  fight;  then 
to  save  his  honour  his  friend  Amile  puts  on  the 
armour  and  helmet  of  Amis,  and  so  pretending  to 
be  Amis,  goes  to  the  meeting  place,  and  wins  the 
fight  gloriously.    But  this  was  an  act  of  untruthful- 


270  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

ness;  he  had  gone  into  battle  under  a  false  name, 
and  to  do  anything  false  even  for  a  good  motive 
is  bad.  So  heaven  punishes  him  by  afflicting  him 
with  the  horrible  disease  of  leprosy. 

The  conditions  of  leprosy  in  the  Middle  Ages 
were  of  a  peculiar  kind.  The  disease  seems  to 
have  been  introduced  into  Europe  from  Asia — 
perhaps  by  the  Crusaders.  Michelet  suggests  that 
it  may  have  resulted  from  the  European  want  of 
cleanliness,  brought  about  by  ascetic  teachings — 
for  the  old  Greek  and  Roman  public  bath-houses 
were  held  in  horror  by  the  mediaeval  Church.  But 
this  is  not  at  all  certain.  What  is  certain  is  that 
in  the  thirteenth,  fourteenth  and  fifteenth  centu- 
ries leprosy  became  very  prevalent.  The  disease 
was  not  then  at  all  understood;  it  was  supposed 
to  be  extremely  contagious,  and  the  man  afflicted 
by  it  was  immediately  separated  from  society,  and 
not  allowed  to  live  in  any  community  under  such 
conditions  as  could  bring  him  into  contact  with 
other  inhabitants.  His  wife  or  children  could  ac- 
company him  only  on  the  terrible  condition  of 
being  considered  lepers.  Every  leper  wore  a  kind 
of  monk's  dress,  with  a  hood  covering  the  face; 
and  he  had  to  carry  a  bell  and  ring  it  constantly 
to  give  notice  of  his  approach.  Special  leper- 
houses  were  built  near  every  town,  where  such 
unfortunates  might  obtain  accommodation.  They 
were  allowed  to  beg,  but  it  was  considered  danger- 
ous to  go  very  near  them,  so  that  in  most  cases 


A  MEDIAEVAL  ROMANCE         271 

alms  or  food  would  be  thrown  to  them  only,  in- 
stead of  being  put  into  their  hands. 

Now  when  the  victim  of  leprosy  in  this  romance 
is  first  afflicted  by  the  disease,  he  happens  to  be 
far  away  from  his  good  friend.  And  none  of  his 
own  family  is  willing  to  help  him;  he  is  regarded 
with  superstitious  as  well  as  with  physical  horror. 
There  is  nothing  left  for  him  to  do  but  to  yield 
up  his  knighthood  and  his  welfare  and  his  family, 
to  put  on  the  leper's  robe,  and  to  go  begging  along 
the  roads,  carrying  a  leper's  bell.  And  this  he 
does.  For  long,  long  months  he  goes  begging 
'from  town  to  town,  till  at  last,  by  mere  chance, 
he  finds  his  way  to  the  gate  of  the  great  castle 
where  his  good  friend  is  living — now  a  great 
prince,  and  married  to  the  daughter  of  the  king. 
And  he  asks  at  the  castle  gate  for  charity  and  for 
food. 

Now  the  porter  at  the  gate  observes  that  the 
leper  has  a  very  beautiful  cup,  exactly  resembling 
a  drinking  cup  belonging  to  his  master,  and  he 
thinks  it  his  duty  to  tell  these  things  to  the  lord 
of  the  castle.  And  the  lord  of  the  castle  remem- 
bers that  very  long  ago  he  and  his  friend  each 
had  a  cup  of  this  kind,  given  to  them  by  the  bishop 
of  Rome.  So,  hearing  the  porter's  story,  he  knew 
that  the  leper  at  the  gate  was  the  friend  who  "had 
delivered  him  from  death,  and  won  for  him  the 
daughter  of  the  King  of  France  to  be  his  wife." 
^  Here  I  had  better  quote  from  the  French  version 


272  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

of  the  story,  in  which  the  names  of  the  friends 
are  changed,  but  without  changing  the  beauty  of 
the  tale  itself: 

"And  straightway  he  fell  upon  him,  and  began 
to  weep  greatly,  and  kissed  him.  And  when  his 
wife  heard  that,  she  ran  out  with  her  hair  in  dis- 
array, weeping  and  distressed  exceedingly — for 
she  remembered  that  it  was  he  who  had  slain  the 
false  Ardres.  And  thereupon  they  placed  him  in 
a  fair  bed,  and  said  to  him,  'Abide  with  us  until 
God's  will  be  accomplished  in  thee,  for  all  that 
we  have  is  at  thy  service.'  So  he  abode  with 
them." 

You  must  understand,  by  the  allusion  to  "God's 
will,"  that  leprosy  was  in  the  Middle  Ages  really 
considered  to  be  a  punishment  from  heaven — so 
that  in  taking  a  leper  into  his  castle,  the  good 
friend  was  not  only  offending  against  the  law  of 
the  land,  but  risking  celestial  punishment  as  well, 
according  to  the  notions  of  that  age.  His  charity, 
therefore,  was  true  charity  indeed,  and  his  friend- 
ship without  fear.  But  it  was  going  to  be  put  to 
a  test  more  terrible  than  any  ever  endured  before. 
To  comprehend  what  followed,  you  must  know 
that  there  was  one  horrible  superstition  of  the 
Middle  Ages — the  belief  that  by  bathing  in  human 
blood  the  disease  of  leprosy  might  be  cured. 
Murders  were  often  committed  under  the  influence 
of  that  superstition.  I  believe  you  will  remember 
that    the    "Golden    Legend"    of    Longfellow    is 


A  MEDIAEVAL  ROMANCE         273 

founded  upon  a  mediaeval  story  in  which  a  young 
girl  voluntarily  offers  up  her  life  in  order  that 
her  blood  may  cure  the  leprosy  of  her  king.  In 
the  present  romance  there  is  much  more  tragedy. 
One  night  while  sleeping  in  his  friend's  castle,  the 
leper  was  awakened  by  an  angel  from  God — 
Raphael — who  said  to  him: 

"I  am  Raphael,  the  angel  of  the  Lord,  and 
I  am  come  to  tell  thee  how  thou  mayst  be  healed. 
Thou  shalt  bid  Amile  thy  comrade  that  he  slay 
his  two  children  and  wash  thee  in  their  blood,  and 
so  thy  body  shall  be  made  whole."  And  Amis 
said  to  him,  "Let  not  this  thing  be,  that  my  com- 
rade should  become  a  murderer  for  my  sake." 
But  the  angel  said,  "It  is  convenient  that  he  do 
this."     And  thereupon  the  angel  departed. 

The  phrase,  "it  is  convenient,"  must  be  under- 
stood as  meaning,  "it  is  ordered."  For  the  me- 
diaeval lord  used  such  gentle  expressions  when 
issuing  his  commands;  and  the  angel  talked  like 
a  feudal  messenger.  But  in  spite  of  the  command, 
the  sick  man  does  not  tell  his  friend  about  the 
angel's  visit,  until  Amile,  who  has  overheard 
the  voice,  forces  him  to  acknowledge  whom  he  had 
been  talking  with  during  the  night.  And  the  emo- 
tion of  the  lord  may  be  imagined,  though  he 
utters  it  only  in  the  following  gentle  words — "I 
would  have  given  to  thee  my  man  servants  and 
my  maid  servants  and  all  my  goods — and  thou 
feignest  that  an  angel  hath  spoken  to  thee  that  I 


274  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

should  slay  my  two  children.  But  I  conjure  thee 
by  the  faith  which  there  is  between  me  and  thee, 
and  by  our  comradeship,  and  by  the  baptism  we 
received  together,  that  thou  tell  me  whether  it 
was  man  or  angel  said  that  to  thee." 

Amis  declares  that  it  was  really  an  angel,  and 
Amile  never  thinks  of  doubting  his  friend's 
word.  It  would  be  a  pity  to  tell  you  the  sequel  in 
my  own  words;  let  me  quote  again  from  the  text, 
translated  by  Walter  Pater.  I  think  you  will  find 
it  beautiful  and  touching: 

''Then  Amile  began  to  weep  in  secret,  and 
thought  within  himself,  'If  this  man  was  ready 
to  die  before  the  King  for  me,  shall  I  not  for  him 
slay  my  children?  Shall  I  not  keep  faith  with 
him  who  was  faithful  to  me  even  unto  death?' 
And  Amile  tarried  no  longer,  but  departed  to 
the  chamber  of  his  wife,  and  bade  her  go  to  hear 
the  Sacred  Office.  And  he  took  a  sword,  and 
went  to  the  bed  where  the  children  were  lying, 
and  found  them  asleep.  And  he  lay  down  over 
them  and  began  to  weep  bitterly  and  said,  'Has 
any  man  yet  heard  of  a  father  who  of  his  own 
will  slew  his  children?  Alas,  my  children!  I  am 
no  longer  your  father,  but  your  cruel  murderer.' 

"And  the  children  awoke  at  the  tears  of  their 
father,  which  fell  upon  them;  and  they  looked  up 
into  his  face  and  began  to  laugh.  And  as  they 
were  of  age  about  three  years,  he  said,  'Your 
laughing  will  be  turned  into  tears,  for  your  inno- 


A  MEDIAEVAL  ROMANCE         275 

cent  blood  must  now  be  shed';  and  therewith  he 
cut  off  their  heads.  Then  he  laid  them  back  in 
the  bed,  and  put  the  heads  upon  the  bodies,  and 
covered  them  as  though  they  slept;  and  with  the 
blood  which  he  had  taken  he  washed  his  comrade, 
and  said,  'Lord  Jesus  Christ!  who  hast  com- 
manded men  to  keep  faith  on  earth,  and  didst  heal 
the  leper  by  Thy  word !  cleanse  now  my  comrade, 
for  whose  love  I  have  shed  the  blood  of  my  chil- 
dren.' "  And  of  course  the  leper  is  immediately 
and  completely  cured.  But  the  mother  did  not 
know  anything  about  the  killing  of  the  children; 
we  have  to  hear  something  about  her  share  in  the 
tragedy.  Let  me  again  quote,  this  time  giving  the 
real  and  very  beautiful  conclusion — 

"Now  neither  the  father  nor  the  mother  had 
yet  entered  where  the  children  were,  but  the  father 
sighed  heavily  because  they  were  dead,  and  the 
mother  asked  for  them,  that  they  might  rejoice 
together;  but  Amile  said,  'Dame!  let  the  children 
sleep.'  And  it  was  already  the  hour  of  Tierce. 
And  going  in  alone  to  the  children  to  weep  over 
them,  he  found  them  at  play  in  the  bed;  only,  in 
the  place  of  the  sword-cuts  about  their  throats 
was,  as  it  were,  a  thread  of  crimson.  And  he 
took  them  in  his  arms  and  carried  them  to  his  wife 
and  said,  'Rejoice  greatly !  For  thy  children  whom 
I  had  slain  by  the  commandment  of  the  angel, 
are  alive,  and  by  their  blood  is  Amis  healed.'  " 

I  think  you  will  all  see  how  fine  a  story  this  is, 


276  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

2nd  feel  the  emotional  force  of  the  grand  moral 
idea  behind  it.  There  is  nothing  more  to  tell  you, 
except  the  curious  fact  that  during  the  Middle 
Ages,  when  it  was  believed  that  the  story  was  really 
true.  Amis  and  Amile — or  Amicus  and  Amelius — 
were  actually  considered  by  the  Church  as«  saints, 
and  people  used  to  pray  to  them.  When  anybody 
was  anxious  for  his  friend,  or  feared  that  he  might 
lose  the  love  of  his  friend,  or  was  afraid  that 
he  might  not  have  strength  to  perform  his  duty 
as  friend — then  he  would  go  to  church  to  implore 
help  from  the  good  saints  Amicus  and  Amelius. 
But  of  course  it  was  all  a  mistake — a  mistake 
which  lasted  until  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury I  Then  somebody  called  the  attention  of  the 
Church  to  the  unmistakable  fact  that  Amicus  and 
Amelius  were  merely  inventions  of  some  mediae- 
val romancer.  Then  the  Church  made  Investi- 
gation, and  greatly  shocked,  withdrew  from  the 
list  of  Its  saints  those  long-loved  names  of  Amicus 
and  Amelius — a  reform  In  which  I  cannot  help 
thinking  the  Church  made  a  very  serious  mistake. 
What  matter  whether  those  shadowy  figures  rep- 
resented original  human  lives  or  only  human 
dreams?  They  were  beautiful,  and  belief  in  them 
made  men  think  beautiful  thoughts,  and  the  im- 
agined help  from  them  had  comforted  many 
thousands  of  hearts.  It  would  have  been  better 
to  have  left  them  alone;  for  that  matter,  how 
many  of  the  existent  lives  of  saints  are  really  true  ? 


A  MEDIAEVAL  ROMANCE         277 

Nevertheless  the  friends  are  not  dead,  though  ex- 
pelled from  the  heaven  of  the  Church.  They  still 
live  in  romance;  and  everybody  who  reads  about 
them  feels  a  little  better  for  their  acquaintance. 

What  I  read  to  you  was  from  the  French  ver- 
sion— that  is  much  the  more  beautiful  of  the  two. 
You  will  find  some  extracts  from  the  English  ver- 
sion in  the  pages  of  Ten  Brink.  But  as  that  great 
German  scholar  pointed  out,  the  English  story 
is  much  rougher  than  the  French.  For  example, 
in  the  English  story,  the  knight  rushes  out  of  his 
castle  to  beat  the  leper  at  the  gate,  and  to  accuse 
him  of  having  stolen  the  cup.  And  he  does  beat 
him  ferociously,  and  abuses  him  with  very  vio- 
lent terms.  In  fact,  the  English  writer  reflected 
too  much  of  mediaeval  English  character,  in  try- 
ing to  cover,  or  to  improve  upon,  the  French 
story,  which  was  the  first.  In  the  French 
story  all  is  knightly  smooth,  refined  as  well  as 
simple  and  strong.  And  where  did  the  mediaeval 
imagination  get  its  material  for  the  story?  Partly, 
perhaps,  from  the  story  of  Joseph  in  the  Bible, 
partly  from  the  story  of  Abraham;  but  the  scrip- 
tural material  is  so  admirably  worked  over  that 
the  whole  thing  appears  deliciously  original.  That 
was  the  great  art  of  the  Middle  Ages — to  make 
old,  old  things  quite  new  by  the  magic  of  spiritual 
imagination.  Men  then  lived  in  a  world  of 
dreams.  And  that  world  still  attracts  us,  for  the 
simple   reason  that  happiness  chiefly  consists  in 


278  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

dreams.  Exact  science  may  help  us  a  great  deal, 
no  doubt,  but  mathematics  do  not  make  us  any 
happier.  Dreams  do,  if  we  can  believe  them. 
The  Middle  Ages  could  believe  them;  we,  at  the 
best,  can  only  try. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

"ionica" 

I  AM  going  now  to  talk  about  a  very  rare  kind  of 
poetry  in  a  very  rare  little  book,  like  fine  wine  in 
a  small  and  precious  flask.  The  author  never  put 
his  name  to  the  book — indeed  for  many  years  it 
was  not  known  who  wrote  the  volume.  We  now 
know  that  the  author  was  a  school  teacher  called 
William  Johnson  who,  later  in  life,  coming  into 
a  small  fortune,  changed  his  name  to  William 
Cory.  He  was  born  sometime  about  1823,  and 
died  in  1892.  He  was,  I  believe,  an  Oxford  man 
and  was  assistant  master  of  Eton  College  for  a 
number  of  years.  Judging  from  his  poems,  he 
must  have  found  pleasure  in  his  profession  as 
well  as  pain.  There  is  a  strange  sadness  nearly 
always,  but  this  sadness  is  mixed  with  expressions 
of  love  for  the  educational  establishment  which 
he  directed,  and  for  the  students  whose  minds  he 
helped  to  form.  He  must  have  been  otherwise 
a  very  shy  man.  Scarcely  anything  seems  to  be 
known  about  him  after  his  departure  from  educa- 
tional circles,  although  everybody  of  taste  now 
knows  his  poems.  I  wish  to  speak  of  them  be- 
cause I  think  that  literary  graduates  of  this  uni- 

279 


28o  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

versity  ought  to  be  at  least  familiar  with  the  name 
"lonica."  At  all  events  you  should  know  some- 
thing about  the  man  and  about  the  best  of  his 
poems.  If  you  should  ask  why  so  little  has  yet 
been  said  about  him  in  books  on  English  literature, 
I  would  answer  that  in  the  first  place  he  was  a 
very  small  poet  writing  in  the  time  of  giants, 
having  for  competitors  Tennyson,  Browning  and 
others.  He  could  scarcely  make  his  small  pipe 
heard  in  the  thunder  of  those  great  organ  tones. 
In  the  second  place  his  verses  were  never  written 
to  please  the  public  at  all.  They  were  written 
only  for  fine  scholars,  and  even  the  titles  of  many 
of  them  cannot  be  explained  by  a  person  devoid 
of  some  Greek  culture.  So  the  little  book,  which 
appeared  quite  early  in  the  Victorian  Age,  was 
soon  forgotten.  Being  forgotten  it  ran  out  of 
print  and  disappeared.  Then  somebody  remem- 
bered that  it  had  existed.  I  have  told  you  that 
it  was  like  the  tone  of  a  little  pipe  or  flute  as 
compared  with  the  organ  music  of  the  larger 
poets.  But  the  little  pipe  happened  to  be  a  Greek 
pipe — the  melody  was  very  sweet  and  very 
strange  and  old,  and  people  who  had  heard  it 
once  soon  wanted  to  hear  it  again.  But  they  could 
not  get  it.  Copies  of  the  first  edition  fetched  ex- 
traordinary sums.  Some  few  years  ago  a  new 
edition  appeared,  but  this  too  is  now  out  of  print 
and  is  fetching  fancy  prices.  However,  you  must 
not  expect  anything  too  wonderful  from  this  way 


"lONICA"  281 

of  introducing  the  subject.  The  facts  only  show- 
that  the  poems  are  liked  by  persons  of  refinement 
and  wealth,  I  hope  to  make  you  like  some  of 
them,  but  the  difficulties  of  so  doing  are  consid- 
erable, because  of  the  extremely  English  character 
of  some  pieces  and  the  extremely  Greek  tone  of 
others.  There  is  also  some  uneven  work.  The 
poet  is  not  in  all  cases  successful.  Sometimes  he 
tried  to  write  society  verse,  and  his  society  verse 
must  be  considered  a  failure.  The  best  pieces  are 
his  Greek  pieces  and  some  compositions  on  love 
subjects  of  a  most  delicate  and  bewitching  kind. 

Of  course  the  very  name  "lonica"  suggests 
Greek  work,  a  collection  of  pieces  In  Ionic  style. 
But  you  must  not  think  that  this  means  only  repe- 
titions of  ancient  subjects.  This  author  brings  the 
Greek  feeling  back  again  into  the  very  heart  of 
English  life  sometimes,  or  makes  an  English  fact 
Illustrate  a  Greek  fable.  Some  delightful  trans- 
lations from  the  Greek  there  are,  but  less  than  half 
a  dozen  In  all. 

I  scarcely  know  how  to  begin — what  piece  to 
quote  first.  But  perhaps  the  little  fancy  called 
"MImnermus  in  Church"  Is  the  best  known,  and 
the  one  which  will  best  serve  to  Introduce  us  to 
the  character  of  Cory.  Before  quoting  it,  how- 
ever, I  must  explain  the  title  briefly.  Mimnermus 
was  an  old  Greek  philosopher  and  poet  who 
thought  that  all  things  in  the  world  are  tempo- 
rary, that  all  hope  of  a  future  life  is  vain,  that 


282  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

there  is  nothing  worth  existing  for  except  love, 
and  that  without  affection  one  were  better  dead. 
There  are,  no  doubt,  various  modern  thinkers 
who  tell  you  much  the  same  thing,  and  this  little 
poem  exhibits  such  modern  feeling  in  a  Greek 
dress.  I  mean  that  we  have  here  a  picture  of  a 
young  man,  a  young  English  scholar,  listening  in 
church  to  Christian  teaching,  but  answering  that 
teaching  with  the  thought  of  the  old  Greeks. 
There  is  of  course  one  slight  difference;  the  mod- 
ern conception  of  love  is  perhaps  a  little  wider  in 
range  than  that  of  the  old  Greeks.  There  is  more 
of  the  ideal  in  it. 

MIMNERMUS  IN  CHURCH 

You  promise  heavens  free  from  strife, 
Pure  truth,  and  perfect  change  of  will; 

But  sweet,  sweet  is  this  human  life, 
So  sweet,  I  fain  would  breathe  it  still ; 

Your  chilly  stars  I  can  forego. 

This  warm  kind  world  is  all  I  know. 

You  say  there  is  no  substance  here, 

One  great  reality  above: 
Back  from  that  void  I  shrink  in  fear 

And  child-like  hide  myself  in  love; 
Show  me  what  angels  feel.    Till  then 
I  cling,  a  mere  weak  man,  to  men. 

You  bid  me  lift  my  mean  desires 
From  faltering  lips  and  fitful  veins 


"lONICA"  283 

To  sexless  souls,  ideal  choirs, 

Unwearied  voices,  wordless  strains; 
My  mind  with  fonder  welcome  owns 
One  dear  dead  friend's  remembered  tones. 

Forsooth  the  present  we  must  give 
To  that  which  cannot  pass  away; 

All  beauteous  things  for  which  we  live 
By  laws  of  time  and  space  decay. 

But  oh,  the  very  reason  why 

I  clasp  them,  is  because  they  die. 

The  preacher  has  been  talking  to  his  congre- 
gation about  the  joys  of  Heaven.  There,  he  says, 
there  will  be  no  quarrelling,  no  contest,  no  false- 
hood, and  all  evil  dispositions  will  be  entirely 
changed  to  good.  The  poet  answers,  "This  world 
and  this  life  are  full  of  beauty  and  of  joy  for  me. 
I  do  not  want  to  die,  I  want  to  live.  I  do  not  wish 
to  go  to  that  cold  region  of  stars  about  which  you 
teach.  I  only  know  this  world  and  I  find  in  it 
warm  hearts  and  precious  affection.  You  say  that 
this  world  is  a  phantom,  unsubstantial,  unreal, 
and  that  the  only  reality  is  above,  in  Heaven.  To 
me  that  Heaven  appears  but  as  an  awful  empti- 
ness. I  shrink  from  it  in  terror,  and  like  a  child 
seek  for  consolation  in  human  love.  It  is  no  use 
to  talk  to  me  about  angels  until  you  can  prove  to 
me  that  angels  can  feel  happier  than  men.  1  pre- 
fer to  remain  with  human  beings.  You  say  that 
I  ought  to  wish  for  higher  things  than  this  world 
can  give,  that  here  minds  are  unsteady  and  weak, 


284  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

hearts  fickle  and  selfish,  and  you  talk  of  souls  with- 
out sex,  imaginary  concerts  of  perfect  music,  tire- 
less singing  in  Heaven,  and  the  pleasure  of  con- 
versation without  speech.  But  all  the  happiness 
that  we  know  is  received  from  our  fellow  beings. 
I  remember  the  voice  of  one  dead  friend  with 
deeper  love  and  pleasure  than  any  images  of 
Heaven  could  ever  excite  in  my  mind." 

The  last  stanza  needs  no  paraphrasing,  but  it 
deserves  some  comment,  for  it  is  the  expression  of 
one  great  difference  between  the  old  Greek  feeling 
in  regard  to  life  and  death,  and  all  modern  reli- 
gious feeling  on  the  same  subject.  You  can  read 
through  hundreds  of  beautiful  inscriptions  which 
were  placed  over  the  Greek  tombs.  They  are  con- 
tained in  the  Greek  Anthology.  You  will  find 
there  almost  nothing  about  hope  of  a  future  life, 
or  about  Heaven.  They  are  not  for  the  most  part 
sad;  they  are  actually  joyous  in  many  cases.  You 
would  say  that  the  Greek  mind  thought  thus  about 
death — "I  have  had  my  share  of  the  beauty  and 
the  love  of  this  world,  and  I  am  grateful  for  this 
enjoyment,  and  now  it  is  time  to  go  to  sleep." 
There  is  actually  an  inscription  to  the  eflFect,  "I 
have  supped  well  of  the  banquet  of  life."  The 
Eastern  religions,  including  Christianity,  taught 
that  because  everything  in  the  world  is  uncertain, 
impermanent,  perishable,  therefore  we  ought  not 
to  allow  our  minds  to  love  worldly  things.  But 
the  Greek  mind,  as  expressed  by  the  old  epigraphy 


"lONICA"  285 

In  the  cemeteries,  not  less  than  by  the  teaching 
of  Mimnermus,  took  exactly  the  opposite  view. 
**0  children  of  men,  it  is  because  beauty  and  pleas- 
ure and  love  and  light  can  last  only  for  a  little 
while,  it  is  exactly  because  of  this  that  you  should 
love  them.  Why  refuse  to  enjoy  the  present  be- 
cause it  can  not  last  for  ever?"  And  at  a  much 
later  day  the  Persian  poet  Omar  took,  you  will 
remember,  precisely  the  same  view.  You  need 
not  think  that  It  would  be  wise  to  accept  such 
teaching  for  a  rule  of  life,  but  it  has  a  certain 
value  as  a  balance  to  the  other  extreme  view,  that 
we  should  make  ourselves  miserable  In  this  world 
with  the  idea  of  being  rewarded  in  another,  con- 
cerning which  we  have  no  positive  knowledge. 
The  lines  with  which  the  poem  concludes  at  least 
deserve  to  be  thought  about — 

But  oh,  the  very  reason  why 
I  clasp  them,  is  because  they  die. 

We  shall  later  on  take  some  of  the  purely  Greek 
work  of  Cory  for  study,  but  I  want  now  to  in- 
terest you  in  the  more  modern  part  of  it.  The 
charm  of  the  following  passage  you  will  better 
feel  by  remembering  that  the  writer  was  then  a 
schoolmaster  at  Eton,  and  that  the  verses  particu- 
larly express  the  love  which  he  felt  for  his  stu- 
dents— a  love  the  more  profound,  perhaps,  be- 
cause the  circumstances  of  the  teacher's  position 
obliged  him  to  appear  cold  and  severe,  obliged 


286  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

him  to  suppress  natural  impulses  of  affection  and 
generosity.  The  discipline  of  the  masters  in  Eng- 
lish public  schools  is  much  more  severe  than  the 
discipline  to  which  the  students  are  subjected.  The 
boys  enjoy  a  great  deal  of  liberty.  The  masters 
may  be  said  to  have  none.  Yet  there  are  men  so 
constituted  that  they  learn  to  greatly  love  the  pro- 
fession. The  title  of  this  poem  is  "Reparabo," 
which  means  'T  will  atone." 

The  world  will  rob  me  of  my  friends, 

For  time  with  her  conspires; 
But  they  shall  both,  to  make  amends, 

Relight  my  slumbering  fires. 

For  while  my  comrades  pass  away 

To  bow  and  smirk  and  gloze, 
Come  others,  for  as  short  a  stay; 

And  dear  are  these  as  those. 

And  who  was  this?  they  ask;  and  then 

The  loved  and  lost  I  praise: 
"  Like  you  they  frolicked;  they  are  men; 

Bless  ye  my  later  days." 

Why  fret  ?    The  hawks  I  trained  are  flown ; 

Twas  nature  bade  them  range; 
I  could  not  keep  their  wings  half-grown, 

I  could  not  bar  the  change. 

With  lattice  opened  wide  I  stand 

To  watch  their  eager  flight; 
With  broken  jesses  in  my  hand 

I  muse  on  their  delight. 


"lONICA"  2«7 

And  oh !  if  one  with  sullied  plume 

Should  droop  in  mid  career, 
My  love  makes  signals, — "  There  is  room, 

O  bleeding  wanderer,  here." 

This  comparison  of  the  educator  to  a  falconer, 
and  of  the  students  to  young  hawks  eager  to  break 
their  jesses,  seems  to  an  Englishman  particularly 
happy  in  reference  to  Eton,  from  which  so  many 
youths  pass  into  the  ranks  of  the  army  and  navy. 
The  line  about  bowing,  smirking  and  glozing,  re- 
fers to  the  comparative  insincerity  of  the  higher 
society  into  which  so  many  of  the  scholars  must 
eventually  pass.  "Smirking"  suggests  insincere 
smiles,  "glozing"  implies  tolerating  or  lightly 
passing  over  faults  or  wrongs  or  serious  matters 
that  should  not  be  considered  lightly.  Society  is 
essentially  insincere  and  artificial  in  all  countries, 
but  especially  so  in  England.  The  old  Eton  mas- 
ter thinks,  however,  that  he  knows  the  moral  char- 
acter of  the  boys,  the  strong  principles  which  make 
its  foundation,  and  he  trusts  that  they  will  be  able 
in  a  general  way  to  do  only  what  is  right,  in  spite 
of  conventions  and  humbug. 

As  I  told  you  before,  we  know  very  little  about 
the  personal  life  of  Cory,  who  must  have  been 
a  very  reserved  man;  but  a  poet  puts  his  heart  into 
his  verses  as  a  general  rule,  and  there  are  many 
little  poems  In  this  book  that  suggest  to  us  an 
unhappy  love  episode.  These  are  extremely 
pretty  and  touching,  the  writer  in  most  cases  con- 


288  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

fessing  himself  unworthy  of  the  person  who 
charmed  him;  but  the  finest  thing  of  the  kind  Is  a 
composition  which  he  suggestively  entitled  "A 
Fable" — that  is  to  say,  a  fable  in  the  Greek  sense, 
an  emblem  or  symbol  of  truth. 

An  eager  girl,  whose  father  buys 
Some  ruined  thane's  forsaken  hall, 

Explores  the  new  domain  and  tries 
Before  the  rest  to  view  it  all. 

I  think  you  have  often  noted  the  fact  here  re- 
lated; when  a  family  moves  to  a  new  house,  it  is 
the  child,  or  the  youngest  daughter,  who  is  the  first 
to  explore  all  the  secrets  of  the  new  residence,  and 
whose  young  eyes  discover  things  which  the  older 
folks  had  not  noticed. 

Alone  she  lifts  the  latch,  and  glides, 
Through  many  a  sadly  curtained  room, 

As  daylight  through  the  doorway  slides 
And  struggles  with  the  muffled  gloom. 

With  mimicries  of  dance  she  wakes 

The  lordly  gallery's  silent  floor, 
And  climbing  up  on  tiptoe,  makes 

The  old-world  mirror  smile  once  more. 

With  tankards  dry  she  chills  her  lips, 
With  yellowing  laces  veils  the  head, 

And  leaps  in  pride  of  ownership 
Upon  the  faded  marriage  bed. 


*'IONICA"  289 

A  harp  in  some  dark  nook  she  sees 

Long  left  a  prey  to  heat  and  frost, 
She  smites  it;  can  such  tinklings  please? 

Is  not  all  worth,  all  beauty,  lost? 

Ah,  who'd  have  thought  such  sweetness  clung 
To  loose  neglected  strings  like  those? 

They  answered  to  whate'er  was  sung, 
And  sounded  as  a  lady  chose. 

Her  pitying  finger  hurried  by 

Each  vacant  space,  each  slackened  chord ; 
Nor  would  her  wayward  zeal  let  die 

The  music-spirit  she  restored. 

The  fashion  quaint,  the  timeworn  flaws, 
The  narrow  range,  the  doubtful  tone, 

All  was  excused  awhile,  because 
It  seemed  a  creature  of  her  own. 

Perfection  tires;  the  new  in  old, 

The  mended  wrecks  that  need  her  skill, 

Amuse  her.     If  the  truth  be  told, 
She  loves  the  triumph  of  her  will. 

With  this,  she  dares  herself  persuade, 

She'll  be  for  many  a  month  content, 
Quite  sure  no  duchess  ever  played 

Upon  a  sweeter  instrument. 

And  thus  in  sooth  she  can  beguile 
Girlhood's  romantic  hours,  but  soon 

She  yields  to  taste  and  mood  and  style, 
A  siren  of  the  gay  saloon. 


290  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

And  wonders  how  she  once  could  like 
Those  drooping  wires,  those  failing  notes, 

And  leaves  her  toy  for  bats  to  strike 
Amongst  the  cobwebs  and  the  motes. 


But  enter  in,  thou  freezing  wind, 

And  snap  the  harp-strings,  one  by  one; 

It  was  a  maiden  blithe  and  kind : 
They  felt  her  touch ;  their  task  is  done. 

In  this  charming  little  study  we  know  that  the 
harp  described  is  not  a  harp;  it  is  the  loving  heart 
of  an  old  man,  at  least  of  a  man  beyond  the  usual 
age  of  lovers.  He  has  described  and  perhaps 
adored  some  beautiful  person  who  seemed  to  care 
for  him,  and  who  played  upon  his  heart,  with  her 
whims,  caresses,  smiles,  much  as  one  would  play 
upon  the  strings  of  a  harp.  She  did  not  mean  to 
be  cruel  at  all,  nor  even  insincere.  It  is  even 
probable  that  she  really  in  those  times  thought 
that  she  loved  the  man,  and  under  the  charms  of 
the  girl  the  man  became  a  different  being;  the  old- 
fashioned  mind  brightened,  the  old-fashioned 
heart  exposed  its  hidden  treasures  of  tenderness 
and  wisdom  and  sympathy.  Very  much  like  play- 
ing upon  a  long  forgotten  instrument,  was  the  re- 
lation between  the  maiden  and  the  man — not  only 
because  he  resembled  such  an  instrument  in  the 
fact  of  belonging  emotionally  and  intellectually  to 
another  generation,  but  also  because  his  was  a 


"lONICA"  291 

heart  whose  true  music  had  long  been  silent,  un- 
heard by  the  world.  Undoubtedly  the  maiden 
meant  no  harm,  but  she  caused  a  great  deal  of 
pain,  for  at  a  later  day,  becoming  a  great  lady 
of  society,  she  forgot  all  about  this  old  friendship, 
or  perhaps  wondered  why  she  ever  wasted  her 
time  in  talking  to  such  a  strange  old-fashioned 
professor.  Then  the  affectionate  heart  is  con- 
demned to  silence  again,  to  silence  and  oblivion, 
like  the  harp  thrown  away  in  some  garret  to  be 
covered  with  cobwebs  and  visited  only  by  bats. 
"Is  it  not  time,"  the  old  man  thinks,  "that  the 
strings  should  be  broken,  the  strings  of  the  heart? 
Let  the  cold  wind  of  death  now  come  and  snap 
them."  Yet,  after  all,  why  should  he  complain? 
Did  he  not  have  the  beautiful  experience  of  lov- 
ing, and  was  she  not  in  that  time  at  least  well 
worthy  of  the  love  that  she  called  forth  like 
music? 

There  are  several  other  poems  referring  to 
what  would  seem  to  be  the  same  experience,  and 
all  are  beautiful,  but  one  seems  to  me  nobler  than 
the  rest,  expressing  as  it  does  a  generous  resigna- 
tion. It  is  called  "Deteriora,"  a  Latin  word  sig- 
nifying lesser,  inferior,  or  deteriorated  things — 
not  easy  to  translate.  Nor  would  you  find  the 
poem  easy  to  understand,  referring  as  it  does  to 
conditions  of  society  foreign  to  anything  in  Jap- 
anese experience.  But  some  verses  which  I  may 
quote  you  will  like. 


292  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

If  fate  and  nature  screen  from  me 
The  sovran  front  I  bowed  before, 

And  set  the  glorious  creature  free, 

Whom  I  would  clasp,  detain,  adore, — 

If  I  forego  that  strange  delight, 

Must  all  be  lost  ?    Not  quite,  not  quite. 

Die,  Little  Love,  without  complaint, 
fVhom  honour  standeth  by  to  shrive: 

Assoiled  from  all  selfish  taint. 

Die,  Love,  whom  Friendship  will  survive. 

Not  hate  nor  folly  gave  thee  birth; 

And  briefness  does  but  raise  thy  worth. 

This  is  the  same  thought  which  Tennyson  ex- 
pressed in  his  famous  lines, 

*Tis  better  to  have  loved  and  lost 
Than  never  to  have  loved  at  all. 

But  it  is  still  more  finely  expressed  to  meet  a  par- 
ticular personal  mood.  One  must  not  think  the 
world  lost  because  a  woman  has  been  lost,  he  says, 
and  such  a  love  is  not  a  thing  for  any  man  to  be 
ashamed  of,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  it  has  been 
disappointed.  It  was  honourable,  unselfish,  not 
inspired  by  any  passion  or  any  folly,  and  the  very 
brevity  of  the  experience  only  serves  to  make  it 
more  precious.  Observe  the  use  of  the  words 
*'shrive"  and  "assoiled."  These  refer  to  the  old 
religious  custom  of  confession;  to  "shrive"  sig- 
nifies to  forgive,  to  free  from  sin,  as  a  priest  is 
supposed  to  do,  and  "assoiled"  means  "purified," 


"lONICA"  293 

If  this  was  a  personal  experience,  it  must  have 
been  an  experience  of  advanced  life.  Elsewhere 
the  story  of  a  boyish  love  is  told  very  prettily, 
under  the  title  of  "Two  Fragments  of  Child- 
hood."    This  is  the  first  fragment: 

When  these  locks  were  yellow  as  gold, 
When  past  days  were  easily  told, 
Well  I  knew  the  voice  of  the  sea, 
Once  he  spake  as  a  friend  to  me. 
Thunder-rollings  carelessly  heard, 
Once  that  poor  little  heart  they  stirred, 

Why,  Oh,  why? 

Memory,  memory! 
She  that  I  wished  to  be  with  was  by. 

Sick  was  I  in  those  misanthrope  days 

Of  soft  caresses,  womanly  ways; 

Once  that  maid  on  the  stair  I  met 

Lip  on  brow  she  suddenly  set. 

Then  flushed  up  my  chivalrous  blood, 

Like  Swiss  streams  in  a  mid-summer  flood. 

Then,  Oh,  then, 

Imogen,  Imogen! 
Hadst  thou  a  lover,  whose  years  were  ten. 

This  is  evidently  the  charming  memory  of  a 
little  sick  boy  sent  to  the  seaside  for  his  health, 
according  to  the  English  custom,  and  unhappy 
there,  unable  to  play  about  like  stronger  children, 
and  obliged  to  remain  under  the  constant  care  of 
nurses  and  female  relatives.  But  in  the  same 
house  there  is  another  family  with  a,  beautiful 


294  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

young  daughter,  probably  sixteen  or  eighteen 
years  old.  The  little  boy  wishes,  wishes  so  much 
that  the  beautiful  lady  would  speak  to  him  and 
play  with  him,  but  he  is  shy,  afraid  to  approach 
her — only  looks  at  her  with  great  admiring  loving 
eyes.  But  one  day  she  meets  him  on  the  stairs, 
and  stoops  down  and  kisses  him  on  the  forehead. 
Then  he  is  in  Heaven.  Afterward  no  doubt  she 
played  with  him,  and  they  walked  up  and  down 
by  the  shore  of  the  sea  together,  and  now,  though 
an  old  man,  whenever  he  hears  the  roar  of  the 
sea  he  remembers  the  beautiful  lady  who  played 
with  him  and  caressed  him,  when  he  was  a  little 
sick  child.  How  much  he  loved  her!  But  she 
was  a  woman,  and  he  was  only  ten  years  old.  The 
reference  to  "chivalrous  blood"  signifies  just  this, 
that  at  the  moment  when  she  kissed  him  he  would 
have  given  his  life  for  her,  would  have  dared  any- 
thing or  done  anything  to  show  his  devotion  to 
her.  No  prettier  memory  of  a  child  could  be  told. 
We  can  learn  a  good  deal  about  even  the  shyest 
of  the  poets  through  a  close  understanding  of  his 
poetry.  From  the  foregoing  we  know  that  Cory 
must  have  been  a  sickly  child;  and  from  other 
poems  referring  to  school  life  we  can  not  escape 
the  supposition  that  he  was  not  a  strong  lad.  In 
one  of  his  verses  he  speaks  of  being  unable  to  join 
in  the  hearty  play  of  his  comrades;  and  in  the 
poem  which  touches  on  the  life  of  the  mature  man 
we  find  him  acknowledging  that  he  believed  his 


"  lONICA  "  295 

life  a  failure — a  failure  through  want  of  strength. 
I  am  going  to  quote  this  poem  for  other  reasons. 
It  is  a  beautiful  address  either  to  some  favourite 
student  or  to  a  beloved  son — it  is  impossible  to 
decide  which.  But  that  does  not  matter.  The 
title  is  "A  New  Year's  Day." 

Our  planet  runs  through  liquid  space, 
And  sweeps  us  with  her  in  the  race ; 
And  wrinkles  gather  on  my  face, 

And  Hebe  bloom  on  thine: 
Our  sun  with  his  encircling  spheres 
Around  the  central  sun  careers; 
And  unto  thee  with  mustering  years 

Come  hopes  which  I  resign. 

'Twere  sweet  for  me  to  keep  thee  still 
Reclining  halfway  up  the  hill; 
But  time  will  not  obey  the  will. 

And  onward  thou  must  climb: 
'Twere  sweet  to  pause  on  this  descent, 
To  wait  for  thee  and  pitch  my  tent. 
But  march  I  must  with  shoulders  bent, 

Yet  further  from  my  prime. 

/  shall  not  tread  thy  battlefield. 
Nor  see  the  blazon  on  thy  shield; 
Take  thou  the  sword  I  could  not  wield. 

And  leave  me,  and  forget. 
Be  fairer,  braver,  more  admired; 
So  win  what  feeble  hearts  desired; 
Then  leave  thine  arms,  when  thou  art  tired. 

To  some  one  nobler  yet. 


296  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

How  beautiful  this  is,  and  how  profoundly  sad! 

I  shall  return  to  the  personal  poetry  of  Cory 
later  on,  but  I  want  now  to  give  you  some  ex- 
amples of  his  Greek  work.  Perhaps  the  best  of 
this  is  little  more  than  a  rendering  of  Greek  into 
English;  some  of  the  work  is  pure  translation. 
But  it  is  the  translation  of  a  very  great  master, 
the  perfect  rendering  of  Greek  feeling  as  well  as 
of  Greek  thought.  Here  is  an  example  of  pure 
translation : 

They  told  me,  Heraclitus,  they  told  me  you  were  dead, 
They  brought  me  bitter  news  to  hear  and  bitter  tears  to 

shed. 
I  wept,  as  I  remembered,  how  often  you  and  I 
Had  tired  the  sun  with  talking  and  sent  him  down  the 

sky. 
And  now  that  thou  art  lying,  my  dear  old  Carian  guest, 
A  handful  of  grey  ashes,  long,  long  ago  at  rest, 
Still  are  thy  pleasant  voices,  thy  nightingales,  awake; 
For  Death,  he  taketh  all  away,  but  them  he  cannot  take. 

What  are  "thy  pleasant  voices,  thy  nightin- 
gales"? They  are  the  songs  which  the  dear  dead 
poet  made,  still  sung  in  his  native  country,  though 
his  body  was  burned  to  ashes  long  ago — has  been 
changed  into  a  mere  handful  of  grey  ashes,  which, 
doubtless,  have  been  placed  in  an  urn,  as  is  done 
with  such  ashes  to-day  in  Japan.  Death  takes 
away  all  things  from  man,  but  not  his  poems,  his 
songs,  the  beautiful  thoughts  which  he  puts  into 
musical  verse.     These  will  always  be  heard  like 


"lONICA"  297 

nightingales.  The  fourth  line  in  the  first  stanza 
contains  an  idiom  which  may  not  be  familiar  to 
you.  It  means  only  that  the  two  friends  talked 
all  day  until  the  sun  set  in  the  West,  and  still 
talked  on  after  that.  Tennyson  has  used  the  same 
Greek  thought  in  a  verse  of  his  poem,  "A  Dream 
of  Fair  Women,"  where  Cleopatra  says, 

"  We  drank  the  Libyan  sun  to  sleep." 

The  Greek  author  of  the  above  poem  was  the 
great  poet  Callimachus,  and  the  English  transla- 
tor does  not  think  it  necessary  even  to  give  the 
name,  as  he  wrote  only  for  folk  well  acquainted 
with  the  classics.  He  has  another  short  trans- 
lation which  he  accompanies  with  the  original 
Greek  text;  it  is  very  pretty,  but  of  an  entirely 
different  kind,  a  kind  that  may  remind  you  of 
some  Japanese  poems.  It  is  only  about  a  cicada 
and  a  peasant  girl,  and  perhaps  it  is  twenty-four 
or  twenty-five  hundred  years  old. 

A  dry  cicale  chirps  to  a  lass  making  hay, 

"Why  creak'st  thou,  Tithonus?"  quoth  she.     "I  don't 

play; 
It  doubles  my  toil,  your  importunate  lay, 
I've  earned  a  sweet  pillow,  lo!  Hesper  is  nigh; 
I  clasp  a  good  wisp  and  in  fragrance  I  lie; 
But  thou  art  unwearied,  and  empty,  and  dry." 

How  very  human  this  little  thing  is — how  actually 
it  brings  before  us  the  figure  of  the  girl,  who  must 


298  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

have  become  dust  some  time  between  two  and 
three  thousand  years  ago !  She  is  working  hard 
in  the  field,  and  the  constant  singing  of  the  insect 
prompts  her  to  make  a  comical  protest.  "Oh, 
Tithonus,  what  are  you  making  that  creaking 
noise  for?  You  old  dry  thing,  I  have  no  time  to 
play  with  you,  or  to  idle  in  any  way,  but  you  do 
nothing  but  complain.  Why  don't  you  work,  as  I 
do?  Soon  I  shall  have  leave  to  sleep,  because 
I  have  worked  well.  There  is  the  evening  star, 
and  I  shall  have  a  good  bed  of  hay,  sweet-smelling 
fresh  hay,  to  lie  upon.  How  well  I  shall  sleep. 
But  you,  you  idle  noisy  thing,  you  do  not  deserve 
to  sleep.  You  have  done  nothing  to  tire  you. 
And  you  are  empty,  dry  and  thirsty.  Serves  you 
right!"  Of  course  you  recognize  the  allusion  to 
the  story  of  Tithonus,  so  beautifully  told  by  Ten- 
nyson. The  girl's  jest  has  a  double  meaning. 
The  word  "importunate"  has  the  signification  of 
a  wearisome  repetition  of  a  request,  a  constant 
asking,  impossible  to  satisfy.  Tithonus  was  sup- 
posed to  complain  because  he  was  obliged  to  live 
although  he  wanted  to  die.  That  young  girl  does 
not  want  to  die  at  all.  And  she  says  that  the  noise 
of  the  insect,  supposed  to  repeat  the  complaint  of 
Tithonus,  only  makes  it  more  tiresome  for  her  to 
work.  She  was  feeling,  no  doubt,  much  as  a  Jap- 
anese student  would  feel  when  troubled  by  the 
singing  of  semi  on  some  very  hot  afternoon  while 
he  is  trying  to  master  some  difficult  problem. 


"  lONlCA  "  299* 

That  is  pure  Greek — pure  as  another  mingling 
of  the  Greek  feeling  with  the  modern  scholarly 
spirit,  entitled  "An  Invocation."  Before  quoting 
from  it  I  must  explain  somewhat;  otherwise  you 
might  not  be  able  to  imagine  what  it  means,  be- 
cause it  was  written  to  be  read  by  those  only  who 
are  acquainted  with  Theocritus  and  the  Greek 
idylists.  Perhaps  I  had  better  say  something  too, 
about  the  word  idyl,  for  the  use  of  the  word  by 
Tennyson  is  not  the  Greek  use  at  all,  except  in 
the  mere  fact  that  the  word  signifies  a  picturing, 
a  shadowing  or  an  imagining  of  things.  Tenny- 
son's pictures  are  of  a  purely  imaginative  kind  in 
the  "Idyls  of  the  King."  But  the  Greek  poets 
who  first  invented  the  poetry  called  idyllic  did  not 
attempt  the  heroic  works  of  imagination  at  all; 
they  only  endeavoured  to  make  perfectly  true  pic- 
tures of  the  common  life  of  peasants  in  the  coun- 
try. They  wrote  about  the  young  men  and  young 
girls  working  on  the  farms,  about  the  way  they 
quarrelled  or  rejoiced  or  made  love,  about  their 
dances  and  their  songs,  about  their  religious  fes- 
tivals and  their  sacrifices  to  the  gods  at  the  parish 
temple.  Imagine  a  Japanese  scholar  of  to-day 
who,  after  leaving  the  university,  instead  of  busy- 
ing himself  with  the  fashionable  studies  of  the 
time,  should  go  out  into  the  remoter  districts  or 
islands  of  Japan,  and  devote  his  life  to  studying 
the  existence  of  the  commoner  people  there,  and 
making  poems  about  it.     This  was  exactly  what 


300  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

the  Greek  idylists  did, — that  is,  the  best  of  them. 
They  were  great  scholars  and  became  friends  of 
kings,  but  they  wrote  poetry  chiefly  about  peasant 
life,  and  they  gave  all  their  genius  to  the  work. 
The  result  was  so  beautiful  that  everybody  is  still 
charmed  by  the  pictures  or  idyls  which  they  made. 
Well,  after  this  disgression,  to  return  to  the 
subject  of  Theocritus,  the  greatest  of  the  idylists. 
He  has  often  introduced  into  his  idyls  the  name 
of  Comatas.  Who  was  Comatas?  Comatas  was 
a  Greek  shepherd  boy,  or  more  strictly  speaking 
a  goatherd,  who  kept  the  flocks  of  a  rich  man.  It 
was  his  duty  to  sacrifice  to  the  gods  none  of  his 
master's  animals,  without  permission;  but  as  his 
master  was  a  very  avaricious  person,  Comatas 
knew  that  it  would  be  of  little  use  to  ask  him. 
Now  this  Comatas  was  a  very  good  singer  of  peas- 
ant songs,  and  he  made  many  beautiful  poems  for 
the  people  to  sing,  and  he  believed  that  it  was 
the  gods  who  had  given  him  power  to  make  the 
songs,  and  the  Muses  had  inspired  him  with  the 
capacity  to  make  good  verse.  In  spite  of  his  mas- 
ter's will,  Comatas  therefore  thought  it  was  not 
very  bad  to  take  the  young  kids  and  sacrifice  to 
the  gods  and  the  Muses.  When  his  master  found 
out  what  had  been  done  with  the  animals,  natu- 
rally he  became  very  angry,  and  he  put  Comatas 
into  a  great  box  of  cedar-wood  in  order  to  starve 
him  to  death — saying,  as  he  closed  and  locked  the 
lid,  "Now,  Comatas,  let  us  see  whether  the  gods 


"lONICA"  301 

will  feed  you!"  In  that  box  Comatas  was  left 
for  a  year  without  food  or  drink,  and  when  the 
master,  at  the  end  of  the  year,  opened  the  box, 
he  expected  to  find  nothing  but  the  bones  of  the 
goatherd.  But  Comatas  was  alive  and  well,  sing- 
ing sweet  songs,  because  during  the  year  the  Muses 
had  sent  bees  to  feed  him  with  honey.  The  bees 
had  been  able  to  enter  the  box  through  a  very  little 
hole.  I  suppose  you  know  that  bees  were  held 
sacred  to  the  Muses,  and  that  there  is  in  Greek 
legend  a  symbolic  relation  between  bees  and 
poetry. 

If  you  want  to  know  what  kind  of  songs  Coma- 
tas sang  and  what  kind  of  life  he  represented, 
you  will  find  all  this  exquisitely  told  by  Theocritus; 
and  there  is  a  beautiful  little  translation  in  prose 
of  Theocritus,  Bion  and  Moschus,  made  by  An- 
drew Lang,  which  should  delight  you  to  read. 
Another  day  I  shall  give  you  examples  of  such 
translations.  Then  you  will  see  what  true  idyllic 
poetry  originally  signified.  These  Greeks,  al- 
though trained  scholars  and  philosophers,  under- 
stood not  only  that  human  nature  in  itself  is  a 
beautiful  thing,  but  also  that  the  best  way  to  study 
human  nature  is  to  study  the  life  of  the  peasants 
and  the  common  people.  It  is  not  to  the  rich  and 
leisurely,  not  to  rank  and  society,  that  a  poet  must 
go  for  inspiration.  He  will  not  find  it  there. 
What  is  called  society  is  a  world  in  which  nobody 
is  happy,  and  in  which  pure  human  nature  is  afraid 


302  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

to  show  itself.  Life  among  the  higher  classes  in 
all  countries  is  formal,  artificial,  theatrical;  poetry 
is  not  there.  Of  course  no  kind  of  human  com- 
munity is  perfectly  happy,  but  it  is  among  the 
simple  folk,  the  country  folk,  who  do  not  know 
much  about  evil  and  deceit,  that  the  greater  pro- 
portion of  happiness  can  be  found.  Among  the 
youths  of  the  country  especially,  combining  the 
charm  of  childhood  with  the  strength  of  adult 
maturity,  the  best  possible  subjects  for  fine  pure 
studies  of  human  nature  can  be  found.  May  I 
not  here  express  the  hope  that  some  young  Jap- 
anese poet,  some  graduate  of  this  very  university, 
will  eventually  attempt  to  do  in  Japan  what  Theo- 
critus and  Bion  did  in  ancient  Sicily?  A  great  deal 
of  the  very  same  kind  of  poetry  exists  in  our  own 
rural  districts,  and  parallels  can  be  found  in  the 
daily  life  of  the  Japanese  peasants  for  everything 
beautifully  described  in  Theocritus.  At  all  events 
I  am  quite  sure  of  one  thing,  that  no  great  new  lit- 
erature can  possibly  arise  in  this  country  until 
some  scholarly  minds  discover  that  the  real  force 
and  truth  and  beauty  and  poetry  of  life  is  to  be 
found  only  in  studies  of  the  common  people — not 
in  the  life  of  the  rich  and  the  noble,  not  in  the 
shadowy  life  of  books. 

Well,  our  English  poet  felt  with  the  Greek 
idylists,  and  in  the  poem  called  "An  Invocation" 
he  beautifully  expresses  this  sympathy.  All  of  us, 
he  says,  should  like  to  see  and  hear  something  of 


"  lONICA  "  303 

the  ancient  past  if  it  were  possible.  We  should 
like,  some  of  us,  to  call  back  the  vanished  gods 
and  goddesses  of  the  beautiful  Greek  world,  or  to 
talk  to  the  great  souls  of  that  world  who  had  the 
experience  of  life  as  men — to  Socrates,  for  ex- 
ample, to  Plato,  to  Phidias  the  sculptor,  to  Per- 
icles the  statesman.  But,  as  a  poet,  my  wish  would 
not  be  for  the  return  of  the  old  gods  nor  of  the 
old  heroes  so  much  as  for  the  return  to  us  of  some 
common  men  who  lived  in  the  Greek  world.  It  is 
Comatas,  he  says,  that  he  would  most  like  to  see, 
and  to  see  in  some  English  park — in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  Cambridge  University,  or  of  Eton 
College.  And  thus  he  addresses  the  spirit  of 
Comatas : 

O  dear  divine  Comatas,  I  would  that  thou  and  I 
Beneath  this  broken  sunlight  this  leisure  day  might  lie; 
Where   trees   from   distant   forests,    whose   names   were 

strange  to  thee, 
Should   bend   their  amorous  branches  within   thy   reach 

to  be, 
And  flowers  thine  Hellas  knew  not,  which  art  hath  made 

more  fair, 
Should  shed  their  shining  petals  upon  thy  fragrant  hair. 

Then  thou  shouldst  calmly  listen  with  ever-changing  looks 
To  songs  of  younger  minstrels  and  plots  of  modern  books, 
And  wonder  at  the  daring  of  poets  later  born, 
Whose  thoughts  are  unto  thy  thoughts  as  noontide  is  to 
morn ; 


304  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

And    little    shouldst    thou    grudge    them    their    greater 

strength  of  soul, 
Thy  partners  in  the  torch-race,  though  nearer  to  the  goal. 

Or  in  thy  cedarn  prison  thou  waitest  for  the  bee: 
Ah,  leave  that  simple  honey  and  take  thy  food  from  me. 
My  sun  is  stooping  westward.    Entranced  dreamer,  haste ; 
There's  fruitage  in  my  garden  that  I  would  have  thee 

taste. 
Now  lift  the  lid  a  moment ;  now,  Dorian  shepherd,  speak ; 
Two  minds  shall  flow   together,    the   English   and   the 

Greek. 

A  few  phrases  of  these  beautiful  stanzas  need 
explanation.  "Broken  sunlight"  refers,  of  course, 
to  the  imperfect  shade  thrown  by  the  trees  under 
which  the  poet  is  lying.  The  shadow  is  broken 
by  the  light  passing  through  leaves,  or  conversely, 
the  light  is  broken  by  the  interposition  of  the 
leaves.  The  reference  to  trees  from  distant  for- 
ests no  doubt  intimates  that  the  poet  is  in  some 
botanical  garden,  a  private  park,  in  which  foreign 
trees  are  carefully  cultivated.  The  "torch  race" 
is  a  simile  for  the  pursuit  of  knowledge  and  truth. 
Greek  thinkers  compare  the  transmission  of 
knowledge  from  one  generation  to  another,  to  the 
passing  of  a  lighted  torch  from  hand  to  hand,  as 
in  the  case  of  messengers  carrying  signals  or  ath- 
letes running  a  mighty  race.  As  a  runner  runs 
until  he  is  tired,  or  until  he  reaches  the  next  sta- 
tion, and  then  passes  the  torch  which  he  has  been 


"lONICA"  305 

carrying  to  another  runner  waiting  to  receive  it, 
so  does  each  generation  pass  on  its  wisdom  to  the 
succeeding  generation,  and  disappear.  "My  sun 
is  stooping  westward"  is  only  a  beautiful  way  of 
saying,  "I  am  becoming  very  old;  be  quick,  so  that 
we  may  see  each  other  before  I  die."  And  the 
poet  suggests  that  it  is  because  of  his  age  and  his 
experience  and  his  wisdom  that  he  could  hope  to 
be  of  service  to  the  dear  divine  Comatas.  The 
expression,  "there  is  fruitage  in  my  garden,"  re- 
fers to  no  material  garden,  but  to  the  cultivated 
mind  of  the  scholar;  he  is  only  saying,  "1  have 
strange  knowledge  that  I  should  like  to  impart  to 
you."  How  delightful,  indeed,  it  would  be,  could 
some  university  scholar  really  converse  with  a  liv- 
ing Greek  of  the  old  days ! 

There  is  another  little  Greek  study  of  great  and 
simple  beauty  entitled  "The  Daughter  of  Cleo- 
menes."  It  is  only  an  historical  incident,  but  it  is 
so  related  for  the  pleasure  of  suggesting  a  pro- 
found truth  about  the  instinct  of  childhood.  Long 
ago,  when  the  Persians  were  about  to  make  an 
attack  upon  the  Greeks,  there  was  an  attempt  to 
buy  off  the  Spartan  resistance,  and  the  messenger 
to  the  Spartan  general  found  him  playing  with 
his  little  daughter,  a  child  of  six  or  seven.  The 
conference  was  carried  on  in  whispers,  and  the 
child  could  not  hear  what  was  being  said;  but  she 
broke  up  the  whole  plot  by  a  single  word.  I  shall 
quote  a  few  lines  from  the  close  of  the  poem, 


3o6  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

which  contain  its  moral  lessons.  The  emissary 
has  tried  to  tempt  him  with  promises  of  wealth 
and  power. 

He  falters;  for  the  waves  he  fears, 

The  roads  he  cannot  measure; 
But  rates  full  high  the  gleam  of  spears 

And  dreams  of  yellow  treasure. 
He  listens;  he  is  yielding  now; 

Outspoke  the  fearless  child: 
"  Oh,  Father,  come  away,  lest  thou 

Be  by  this  man  beguiled." 
Her  lowly  judgment  barred  the  plea, 

So  low,  it  could  not  reach  her. 
The  man  knows  more  of  land  and  sea. 

But  she's  the  truer  teacher. 

All  the  little  girl  could  know  about  the  matter 
was  instinctive;  she  only  saw  the  cunning  face  of 
the  stranger,  and  felt  sure  that  he  was  trying  to 
deceive  her  father  for  a  bad  purpose — so  she 
cried  out,  "Father,  come  away  with  me,  or  else 
that  man  will  deceive  you."  And  she  spoke 
truth,  as  her  father  immediately  recognized. 

There  are  several  more  classical  studies  of  ex- 
traordinary beauty;  but  your  interest  in  them 
would  depend  upon  something  more  than  interest 
in  Greek  and  Roman  history,  and  we  can  not  study 
all  the  poems.  So  1  prefer  to  go  back  to  the 
meditative  lyrics,  and  to  give  a  few  splendid  ex- 
amples of  these  more  personal  compositions.  The 
following  stanzas  are  from  a  poem  whose  Latin 


"  lONICA  "  307 

title  signifies  that  Love  conquers  death.  In  this 
poem  the  author  becomes  the  equal  of  Tennyson 
as  a  master  of  language. 

The  plunging  rocks,  whose  ravenous  throats 
The  sea  in  wrath  and  mockery  fills, 

The  smoke  that  up  the  valley  floats, 
The  girlhood  of  the  growing  hills; 

The  thunderings  from  the  miners'  ledge, 
The  wild  assaults  on  nature's  hoard. 

The  peak  that  stormward  bares  an  edge 

Ground  sharp  in  days  when  Titans  warred; 

Grim  heights,  by  wandering  clouds  embraced 
Where  lightning's  ministers  conspire. 

Grey  glens,  with  tarns  and  streamlet  laced, 
Stark  forgeries  of  primeval  fire. 

These  scenes  may  gladden  many  a  mind 
Awhile  from  homelier  thoughts  released, 

And  here  my  fellow  men  may  find 
A  Sabbath  and  a  vision-feast. 

/  bless  them  in  the  good  they  feel; 

And  yet  I  bless  them  with  a  sigh; 
On  me  this  grandeur  stamps  the  seal 

Of  tyrannous  mortality. 

The  pitiless  mountain  stands  so  sure. 

The  human  breast  so  weakly  heaves. 
That  brains  decay  while  rocks  endure. 
At  this  the  insatiate  spirit  grieves. 


3o8  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

But  hither,  oh  ideal  bride! 

For  whom  this  heart  in  silence  aches, 
Love  is  unwearied  as  the  tide, 

Love  is  perennial  as  the  lakes. 

Come  thou.    The  spiky  crags  will  seem 

One  harvest  of  one  heavenly  year, 
And  fear  of  death,  like  childish  dream. 

Will  pass  and  flee,  when  thou  art  here. 

Very  possibly  this  charming  meditation  was 
written  on  the  Welsh  coast;  there  is  just  such 
scenery  as  the  poem  describes,  and  the  grand  peak 
of  Snowdon  would  well  realize  the  imagination  of 
the  line  about  the  girlhood  of  the  growing  hills. 
The  melancholy  of  the  latter  part  of  the  compo- 
sition is  the  same  melancholy  to  be  found  in 
"Mimnermus  in  Church,"  the  first  of  Cory's 
poems  which  we  read  together.  It  is  the  Greek 
teaching  that  there  is  nothing  to  console  us  for 
the  great  doubt  and  mystery  of  existence  except 
unselfish  affection.  All  through  the  book  we  find 
the  same  philosophy,  even  in  the  beautiful  studies 
of  student  life  and  the  memories  of  childhood.  So 
It  Is  quite  a  melancholy  book,  though  the  sadness 
be  beautiful.  I  have  given  you  examples  of  the 
sadness  of  doubt  and  of  the  sadness  of  love;  but 
there  is  yet  a  third  kind  of  sadness — the  sadness 
of  a  childless  man,  wishing  that  he  could  have  a 
child  of  his  own.  It  Is  a  very  pretty  thino^,  simply 
entitled    "Scheveningen    Avenue" — probably    the 


"  lONICA  "  309 

name  of  the  avenue  where  the  incident  occurred. 
The  poet  does  not  tell  us  how  it  occurred,  but  we 
can  very  well  guess.  He  was  riding  in  a  street 
car,  probably,  and  a  little  girl  next  to  him,  while 
sitting  upon  her  nurse's  lap,  fell  asleep,  and  as  she 
slept  let  her  head  fall  upon  his  shoulder.  This  is 
a  very  simple  thing  to  make  a  poem  about,  but 
[what  a  poem  it  is ! 

Oh,  that  the  road  were  longer 

A  mile,  or  two,  or  three! 
So  might  the  thought  grow  stronger 

That  flows  from  touch  of  thee. 

Oh  little  slumbering  maid. 

If  thou  wert  five  years  older. 
Thine  head  would  not  be  laid 

So  simply  on  my  shoulder! 

Oh,  would  that  I  were  younger. 

Oh,  were  I  more  like  thee, 
I  should  not  faintly  hunger 

For  love  that  cannot  be. 

A  girl  might  be  caressed 

Beside  me  freely  sitting; 
A  child  on  knee  might  rest, 

And  not  like  thee,  unwitting. 

Such  honour  is  thy  mother's. 

Who  smileth  on  thy  sleep. 
Or  for  the  nurse  who  smothers 

Thy  cheek  in  kisses  deep. 


3IO  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

And  but  for  parting  day, 

And  but  for  forest  shady, 
From  me  they'd  take  away 

The  burden  of  their  lady. 

Ah  thus  to  feel  thee  leaning 

Above  the  nursemaid's  hand, 
Is  like  a  stranger's  gleaning 

Where  rich  men  own  the  land; 

Chance  gains,  and  humble  thrift, 
With  shyness  much  like  thieving. 

No  notice  with  the  gift. 

No  thanks  with  the  receiving. 

Oh  peasant,  when  thou  starvest 

Outside  the  fair  domain. 
Imagine  there's  a  harvest 

In  every  treasured  grain. 

Make  with  thy  thoughts  high  cheer, 

Say  grace  for  others  dining, 
And  keep  thy  pittance  clear 

From  poison  of  repining. 

There  is  an  almost  intolerable  acuity  of  sadness 
in  the  last  two  mocking  verses,  but  how  pretty  and 
how  tender  the  whole  thing  is,  and  how  gentle- 
hearted  must  have  been  the  man  who  wrote  it! 
The  same  tenderness  reappears  in  references  to 
children  of  a  larger  growth,  the  boys  of  his  school. 
Sometimes  he  very  much  regrets  the  necessity  of 
discipline,  and  advocates  a  wiser  method  of  deal- 


"lONICA"  311 

ing  with  the  young.    How  very  pretty  is  this  little 
verse  about  the  boy  he  loves. 

Sweet  eyes,  that  aim  a  level  shaft, 

At  pleasure  flying  from  afar. 
Sweet  lips,  just  parted  for  a  draught 

Of  Hebe's  nectar,  shall  I  mar 
By  stress  of  disciplinal  craft 

The  joys  that  in  your  freedom  are? 

But  a  little  reflection  further  on  in  the  same 
poem  reminds  us  how  necessary  the  discipline  must 
be  for  the  battle  of  life,  inasmuch  as  each  of  those 
charming  boys  will  have  to  fight  against  evil — 

yet  shall  ye  cope 

With  worlding  wrapped  in  silken  lies, 

With  pedant,  hypocrite,  and  pope. 

One  might  easily  lecture  about  this  little  vol- 
ume for  many  more  days,  so  beautiful  are  the 
things  which  fill  it.  But  enough  has  been  cited  to 
exemplify  its  unique  value.  If  you  reread  these 
quotations,  I  think  you  will  find  each  time  new 
beauty  in  them.  And  the  beauty  is  quite  peculiar. 
Such  poetry  could  have  been  written  only  under 
two  conditions.  The  first  is  that  the  poet  be  a 
consummate  scholar.  The  second  is  that  he  must 
have  suffered,  as  only  a  great  mind  and  heart  could 
suffer,  from  want  of  affection. 


CHAPTER  XV 

OLD  GREEK   FRAGMENTS 

The  other  day  when  we  were  reading  some  of 
the  poems  in  "lonica,"  I  promised  to  speak  in  an- 
other short  essay  of  Theocritus  and  his  songs  or 
idyls  of  Greek  peasant  life,  but  in  speaking  of  him 
it  will  be  well  also  to  speak  of  others  who  equally 
illustrate  the  fact  that  everywhere  there  is  truth 
and  beauty  for  the  mind  that  can  see.  I  spoke 
last  week  about  what  I  thought  the  highest  pos- 
sible kind  of  literary  art  might  become.  But  the 
possible  becoming  is  yet  far  away;  and  In  speak- 
ing of  some  old  Greek  writers  I  want  only  to  em- 
phasize the  fact  that  modern  literary  art  as  well 
as  ancient  literary  art  produced  their  best  results 
from  a  close  study  of  human  nature. 

Although  Theocritus  and  others  who  wrote 
idyls  found  their  chief  Inspiration  in  the  life  of 
the  peasants,  they  sometimes  also  wrote  about  the 
life  of  cities.  Human  nature  may  be  studied  in 
the  city  as  well  as  In  the  country,  provided  that  a 
man  knows  how  to  look  for  it.  It  Is  not  In  the 
courts  of  princes  nor  the  houses  of  nobles  nor  the 
residences  of  the  wealthy  that  such  study  can  be 
made.    These  superior  classes  have  found  it  nec- 

312 


OLD  GREEK  FRAGMENTS         313 

essary  to  show  themselves  to  the  world  very  cau- 
tiously; they  live  by  rule,  they  conceal  their  emo- 
tions, they  move  theatrically.  But  the  ordinary, 
everyday  people  of  cities  are  very  different;  they 
speak  their  thoughts,  they  keep  their  hearts  open, 
and  they  let  us  see,  just  as  children  do,  the  good 
or  the  evil  side  of  their  characters.  So  a  good 
poet  and  a  good  observer  can  find  in  the  life  of 
cities  subjects  of  study  almost  as  easily  as  in  the 
country.  Theocritus  has  done  this  In  his  fifteenth 
idyl.  This  Idyl  is  very  famous,  and  it  has  been 
translated  hundreds  of  times  Into  various  lan- 
guages. Perhaps  you  may  have  seen  one  version 
of  it  which  was  made  by  Matthew  Arnold.  But 
I  think  that  the  version  made  by  Lang  Is  even 
better. 

The  scene  Is  laid  In  Alexandria,  probably  some 
two  thousand  years  ago,  and  the  occasion  is  a  re- 
ligious holiday — a  matsiiri,  as  we  call  it  in  Japan. 
Two  women  have  made  an  appointment  to  go  to- 
gether to  the  temple,  to  see  the  festival  and  to 
see  the  people.  The  poet  begins  his  study  by  in- 
troducing us  to  the  chamber  of  one  of  the  women. 

GoRO.     "Is  Praxinoe  at  home?" 

Praxinoe.  "Dear  Gorgo,  how  long  Is  It  since 
you  have  been  here !  She  Is  at  home.  The  won- 
der is  that  you  have  got  here  at  last!  Eunoe, 
come  and  see  that  she  has  a  chair  and  put  a  cush- 
ion on  it!" 

G.     "It  does  most  charmingly  as  It  Is." 


314  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

P.     "Do  sit  down." 

How  natural  this  is.  There  is  nothing  Greek 
about  it  any  more  than  there  is  Japanese;  it  is 
simply  human.  It  is  something  that  happens  in 
Tokyo  every  day,  certainly  in  houses  where  there 
are  chairs  and  where  it  is  a  custom  to  put  a  cushion 
on  the  chair  for  the  visitor.  But  remember,  this 
was  two  thousand  years  ago.  Now  listen  to  what 
the  visitor  has  to  say. 

"I  have  scarcely  got  to  you  at  all,  Praxinoe ! 
What  a  huge  crowd,  what  hosts  of  carriages ! 
Everywhere  cavalry  boots,  everywhere  men  in 
uniform !  And  the  road  is  endless;  yes,  you  really 
live  too  far  away!" 

Praxinoe  answers: 

"It  is  all  for  that  mad  man  of  mine.  Here  he 
came  to  the  ends  of  the  earth  and  took  a  hall,  not 
a  house,  and  all  that  we  might  not  be  neighbours. 
The  jealous  wretch,  always  the  same,  ever  for 
spite," 

She  is  speaking  half  in  jest,  half  in  earnest;  but 
she  forgets  that  her  little  boy  is  present,  and  the 
visitor  reminds  her  of  the  fact: 

"Don't  talk  of  your  husband  like  that,  my  dear 
girl,  before  the  little  boy, — look  how  he  is  staring 
at  you  ! — Never  mind,  Zaphyrion,  sweet  child,  she 
is  not  speaking  about  papa." 

P.  *'Our  Lady!  (Persephone)  The  child 
takes  notice !" 

Then  the  visitor  to  comfort  the  child  says  "Nice 


OLD  GREEK  FRAGMENTS        315 

papa,"  and  the  conversation  proceeds.  The  two 
talk  about  their  husbands,  about  their  dresses, 
about  the  cost  of  things  in  the  shops;  but  in  order 
to  see  the  festival  Praxinoe  must  dress  herself 
quickly,  and  woman,  two  thousand  years  ago,  just 
as  now,  takes  a  long  time  to  dress.  Hear  Praxi- 
noe talking  to  her  maid-servant  while  she  hurries 
to  get  ready: 

"Eunoe,  bring  the  water  and  put  it  down  in 
the  middle  of  the  room, — lazy  creature  that  you 
are.  Cat-like,  always  trying  to  sleep  soft!  Come, 
bustle,  bring  the  water;  quicker!  I  want  water 
first, — and  how  she  carries  it !  Give  it  me  all  the 
same; — don't  pour  out  so  much,  you  extravagant 
thing!  Stupid  girl!  Why  are  you  wetting  my 
dress?  There,  stop,  I  have  washed  my  hands  as 
heaven  would  have  it.  Where  is  the  key  of  the 
big  chest?     Bring  it  here." 

This  is  life,  natural  and  true ;  we  can  see  those 
three  together,  the  girlish  young  wife  hurrying 
and  scolding  and  chattering  naturally  and  half 
childishly,  the  patient  servant  girl  smiling  at  the 
hurry  of  her  mistress,  and  the  visitor  looking  at 
her  friend's  new  dress,  wondering  how  much  it 
cost  and  presently  asking  her  the  price.  At  last 
all  is  ready.  But  the  little  boy  sees  his  mother  go 
out  and  he  wants  to  go  out  too,  though  it  has  been 
decided  not  to  take  him,  because  the  crowd  is  too 
rough  and  he  might  be  hurt.  Here  the  mother 
first  explains,  then  speaks  firmly : 


3i6  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

"No,  child,  I  don't  mean  to  take  you.  Boo ! 
Bogies !  There  is  a  horse  that  bites !  Cry  as 
much  as  you  please,  but  I  cannot  have  you 
maimed." 

They  go  out,  Praxinoe  and  Gorgo  and  the  maid- 
servant Eunoe.  The  crowd  is  tremendous,  and 
they  find  it  very  hard  to  advance.  Sometimes 
there  are  horses  in  the  way,  sometimes  wagons, 
occasionally  a  legion  of  cavalry.  We  know  all 
this,  because  we  hear  the  chatter  of  the  women 
as  they  make  their  way  through  the  press. 

"Give  me  your  hand,  and  you,  Eunoe,  catch 
hold  of  Eutychis, — for  fear  lest  you  get  lost. 
.  .  .  Here  come  the  kings  on  horses !  My  dear 
man,  don't  trample  on  me.  Eunoe,  you  fool- 
hardy girl,  will  you  never  keep  out  of  the  way? 
Oh !  How  tiresome,  Gorgo,  my  muslin  veil  is  torn 
in  two  already.  .  .  .  For  heaven's  sake,  sir,  if 
you  ever  wish  to  be  fortunate,  take  care  of  my 
shawl!" 

Stranger.  "I  can  hardly  help  myself,  but  for 
all  that  I  will  be  as  helpful  as  I  can." 

The  strange  man  helps  the  women  and  children 
through  the  pushing  crowd,  and  they  thank  him 
very  prettily,  praying  that  he  may  have  good  for- 
tune all  his  life.  But  not  all  the  strangers  who 
come  in  contact  with  them  happen  to  be  so  kind. 
They  come  at  last  into  that  part  of  the  temple 
ground  where  the  image  of  Adonis  is  displayed; 
the  beauty  of  the  statue  moves  them,  and  they 


OLD  GREEK  FRAGMENTS        317 

utter  exclamations  of  delight.  This  does  not 
please  some  of  the  male  spectators,  one  of  whom 
exclaims,  "You  tiresome  women,  do  cease  your 
endless  cooing  talk !  They  bore  one  to  death  with 
their  eternal  broad  vowels !" 

They  are  country  women,  and  their  critic  is 
probably  a  purist — somebody  who  has  studied 
Greek  as  it  is  pronounced  and  spoken  in  Athens. 
But  the  women  bravely  resent  this  interference 
with  their  rights. 

GoRGO.  "Indeed!  And  where  may  this  per- 
son come  from  ?  What  is  it  to  you  if  we  are  chat- 
terboxes? Give  orders  to  your  own  servants,  sir. 
Do  you  pretend  to  command  the  ladies  of  Syra- 
cuse? If  you  must  know,  we  are  Corinthians  by 
descent,  like  Bellerophon  himself,  and  we  speak 
Peloponnesian.  Dorian  women  may  lawfully 
speak  Doric,  I  presume." 

This  is  enough  to  silence  the  critic,  but  the  other 
young  woman  also  turns  upon  him,  and  we  may 
suppose  that  he  is  glad  to  escape  from  their 
tongues.  And  then  everybody  becomes  silent,  for 
the  religious  services  begin.  The  priestess,  a 
comely  girl,  chants  the  psalm  of  Adonis,  the  beau- 
tiful old  pagan  hymn,  more  beautiful  and  more 
sensuous  than  anything  uttered  by  the  later  re- 
ligious poets  of  the  West;  and  all  listen  in 
delighted  stillness.  As  the  hymn  ends.  Gorge 
bursts  out  in  exclamation  of  praise: 

"Praxinoe!     The  woman  is  cleverer  than  we 


3i8  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

fancied!  Happy  woman  to  know  so  much! — 
Thrice  happy  to  have  so  sweet  a  voice!  Well, 
all  the  same,  it  is  time  to  be  making  for  home; 
Diocleides  has  not  had  his  dinner,  and  the  man  is 
all  vinegar, — don't  venture  near  him  when  he 
is  kept  waiting  for  dinner.  Farewell,  beloved 
Adonis — may  you  find  us  glad  at  your  next 
coming." 

And  with  this  natural  mingling  of  the  sentimen- 
tal and  the  commonplace  the  little  composition 
ends.  It  is  as  though  we  were  looking  through 
some  window  into  the  life  of  two  thousand  years 
ago.  Read  the  whole  thing  over  to  yourselves 
when  you  have  time  to  find  the  book  in  the  library, 
and  see  how  true  to  human  nature  It  is.  There 
is  nothing  in  it  except  the  wonderful  hymn,  which 
does  not  belong  to  to-day  as  much  as  to  the  long 
ago,  to  modern  Tokyo  as  much  as  to  ancient 
Greece.  That  is  what  makes  the  immortality  of 
any  literary  production — not  simply  truth  to  the 
life  of  one  time,  but  truth  to  the  life  of  every  time 
and  place. 

Not  many  years  ago  there  was  discovered  a 
book  by  Herodas,  a  Greek  writer  of  about  the 
same  period.  It  is  called  the  "Mimes,"  a  series 
of  little  dramatic  studies  picturing  the  life  of  the 
time.  One  of  these  Is  well  worthy  of  rank  with 
the  idyl  of  Theocritus  above  mentioned.  It  is  the 
study  of  a  conversation  between  a  young  woman 
and  an  old  woman.     The  young  woman  has  a 


OLD  GREEK  FRAGMENTS        319 

husband,  who  left  her  to  join  a  military  expedition 
and  has  not  been  heard  of  for  several  years.  The 
old  woman  is  a  go-between,  and  she  comes  to  see 
the  young  person  on  behalf  of  another  young  man, 
who  admires  her.  But  as  soon  as  she  states  the 
nature  of  her  errand,  the  young  lady  becomes 
very  angry  and  feigns  much  virtuous  indignation. 
There  is  a  quarrel.  Then  the  two  become  friends, 
and  we  know  that  the  old  woman's  coming  is  likely 
to  bring  about  the  result  desired.  Now  the  won- 
der of  this  little  study  also  is  the  play  of  emotion 
which  it  reveals.  Such  emotions  are  common  to 
all  ages  of  humanity;  we  feel  the  freshness  of  this 
reflection  as  we  read,  to  such  a  degree  that  we 
cannot  think  of  the  matter  as  having  happened 
long  ago.  Yet  even  the  city  in  which  these  epi- 
sodes took  place  has  vanished  from  the  face  of  the 
earth. 

In  the  case  of  the  studies  of  peasant  life,  there 
is  also  value  of  another  kind.  Here  we  have  not 
only  studies  of  human  nature,  but  studies  of  par- 
ticular social  conditions.  The  quarrels  of  peas- 
ants, half  good  natured  and  nearly  always  happily 
ending;  their  account  of  their  sorrows;  their  gos- 
sip about  their  work  in  the  fields — all  this  might 
happen  almost  anywhere  and  at  almost  any  time. 
But  the  song  contest,  the  prize  given  for  the  best 
composition  upon  a  chosen  subject,  this  is  partic- 
ularly Greek,  and  has  never  perhaps  existed  out- 
side of  some  place  among  the  peasant  folk.    It  was 


320  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

the  poetical  side  of  this  Greek  life  of  the  peasants, 
as  recorded  by  Theocritus,  which  so  much  influ- 
enced the  literatures  of  the  seventeenth  and  eigh- 
teenth centuries  In  France  and  in  England.  But 
neither  in  France  nor  in  England  has  there  ever 
really  been,  at  any  time,  any  life  resembling  that 
portrayed  by  Theocritus;  to-day  nothing  appears 
to  us  more  absurd  than  the  eighteenth  century 
habit  of  picturing  the  Greek  shepherd  life  in  Eng- 
lish or  French  landscapes.  What  really  may  have 
existed  among  the  shepherds  of  the  antique 
world  could  not  possibly  exist  In  modern  times. 
But  how  pretty  It  is !  I  think  that  the  tenth  Idyl 
of  Theocritus  is  perhaps  the  prettiest  example  of 
the  whole  series,  thirty  in  number,  which  have 
been  preserved  for  us.  The  plan  is  of  the  sim- 
plest. Two  young  peasants,  respectively  named 
Battus  and  Milon,  meeting  together  In  the  field, 
talk  about  their  sweethearts.  One  of  them  works 
lazily  and  is  jeered  by  the  other  In  consequence. 
The  subject  of  the  jeering  acknowledges  that  he 
works  badly  because  his  mind  Is  disturbed — he  has 
fallen  in  love.  Then  the  other  expresses  sym- 
pathy for  him,  and  tells  him  that  the  best  thing 
he  can  do  to  cheer  himself  up  will  be  to  make  a 
song  about  the  girl,  and  to  sing  it  as  he  works. 
Then  he  makes  a  song,  which  has  been  the  admira- 
tion of  the  world  for  twenty  centuries  and  has 
been  translated  into  almost  every  language  pos- 
sessing a  literature. 


OLD  GREEK  FRAGMENTS         321 

"They  all  call  thee  a  gipsy,  gracious  Bombyca, 
and  lean,  and  sunburnt; — 'tis  only  I  that  call  thee 
honey-pale. 

"Yea,  and  the  violet  is  swart  and  swart  the  let- 
tered hyacinth;  but  yet  these  flowers  are  chosen 
the  first  in  garlands. 

"The  goat  runs  after  cytisus,  the  wolf  pursues 
the  goat,  the  crane  follows  the  plough, — but  I  am 
wild  for  love  of  thee. 

"Would  it  were  mine,  all  the  wealth  whereof 
Croesus  was  lord,  as  men  tell !  Then  images  of 
us,  all  in  gold,  should  be  dedicated  to  Aphrodite, 
thou  with  thy  flute,  and  a  rose,  yea,  or  an  apple, 
and  I  in  fair  attire  and  new  shoon  of  Amyclae 
on  both  my  feet. 

"Ah,  gracious  Bombyca,  thy  feet  are  fashioned 
like  carven  ivory,  thy  voice  is  drowsy  sweet,  and 
thy  ways — I  can  not  tell  of  them." 

Even  through  the  disguise  of  an  English  prose 
translation,  you  will  see  how  pretty  and  how  sim- 
ple this  little  song  must  have  been  in  the  Greek, 
and  how  very  natural  is  the  language  of  it.  Our 
young  peasant  has  fallen  in  love  with  the  girl  who 
is  employed  to  play  the  flute  for  the  reapers,  as 
the  peasants  like  to  work  to  the  sound  of  music. 
His  comrades  do  not  much  admire  Bombyca;  one 
calls  her  "a  long  grasshopper  of  a  girl";  another 
finds  her  too  thin;  a  third  calls  her  a  gipsy,  such 
a  dark  brown  her  skin  has  become  by  constant 
exposure  to  the  summer  sun.    And  the  lover,  look- 


322  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

ing  at  her,  is  obliged  to  acknowledge  in  his  own 
mind  that  she  is  long  and  lean  and  dark  and  like 
a  gipsy;  but  he  finds  beauty  in  all  these  character- 
istics, nevertheless.  What  if  she  is  dark?  The 
sweetest  honey  is  darkish,  like  amber,  and  so  are 
beautiful  flowers,  the  best  of  all  flowers,  flowers 
given  to  Aphrodite;  and  the  sacred  hyacinth  on 
whose  leaves  appear  the  letters  of  the  word  of 
.lamentation  "Ai!  Ai !" — ^that  is  also  dark  like 
.  Bombyca.  Her  darkness  is  that  of  honey  and 
flowers.  What  a  charming  apology!  He  cannot 
deny  that  she  is  long  and  lean,  and  he  remains 
silent  on  these  points,  but  here  we  must  all  sym- 
pathize with  him.  He  shows  good  taste.  It  is  the 
tall  slender  girl  that  is  really  the  most  beautiful 
^nd  the  most  graceful,  not  the  large-limbed, 
strong-bodied  peasant  type  that  his  companions 
would  prefer.  Without  knowing  it,  he  has  fallen 
in  love  like  an  artist.  And  he  is  not  blind  to  the 
grace  of  slenderness  and  of  form,  though  he  can- 
not express  it  in  artistic  language.  He  can  only 
compare  the  shape  of  the  girl's  feet  to  the  ivory 
feet  of  the  divinities  in  the  temples — perhaps  he 
is  thinking  of  some  ivory  image  of  Aphrodite 
which  he  has  seen.  But  how  charming  an  image 
does  he  make  to  arise  before  us !  Beautiful  is  the 
description  of  the  girl's  voice  as  "  drowsy  sweet." 
But  the  most  exquisite  thing  in  the  whole  song  is 
the  final  despairing  admission  that  he  can  not  de- 
scribe her  at  all — "and  thy  ways,  I  can  not  tell  of 


OLD  GREEK  FRAGMENTS         323 

them" !  This  is  one  of  the  most  beautiful  expres- 
sions in  any  poem  ancient  or  modern,  because  of 
its  supreme  truth.  What  mortal  ever  could  de- 
scribe the  charm  of  manner,  voice,  smile,  address, 
in  mere  words  ?  Such  things  are  felt,  they  can  not 
be  described;  and  the  peasant  boy  reaches  the 
highest  height  of  true  lyrical  poetry  when  he  cries 
out  "I  can  not  tell  of  them."  The  great  French 
critic  Sainte-Beuve  attempted  to  render  this  line 
as  follows — "Quant  a  ta  maniere,  je  ne  puis  la 
rendre!*'  This  is  very  good;  and  you  can  take 
your  choice  between  it  and  any  English  transla- 
tion. But  good  judges  say  that  nothing  in  English 
or  French  equals  the  charm  of  the  original. 

You  will  find  three  different  classes  of  idyls  in 
Theocritus;  the  idyl  which  is  a  simple  song  of 
peasant  life,  a  pure  lyric  expressing  only  a  single 
emotion;  the  idyl  which  is  a  little  story,  usually 
a  story  about  the  gods  or  heroes;  and  lastly,  the 
idyl  which  is  presented  in  the  form  of  a  dialogue, 
or  even  of  a  conversation  between  three  or  four 
persons.  All  these  forms  of  idyl,  but  especially 
'the  first  and  the  third,  were  afterward  beautifully 
imitated  by  the  Roman  poets;  then  very  imper- 
fectly imitated  by  modern  poets.  The  imitation 
still  goes  on,  but  the  very  best  English  poets  have 
never  really  been  able  to  give  us  anything  worthy 
of  Theocritus  himself. 

However,  this  study  of  the  Greek  model  has 
given  some  terms  to  English  literature  which  every 


324  BOOKS  AND  HABITS 

student  ought  to  know.  One  of  these  terms  is 
amoebaean, — amoebsean  poetry  being  dialogue 
poetry  composed  in  the  form  of  question  and  re- 
ply. The  original  Greek  signification  was  that  of 
alternate  speaking.  Please  do  not  forget  the 
word.  You  may  often  find  it  in  critical  studies 
in  essays  upon  contemporary  literature ;  and  when 
you  see  it  again,  remember  Theocritus  and  the 
school  of  Greek  poets  who  first  introduced  the 
charm  of  amoebaean  poetry.  I  hope  that  this  lit- 
tle lecture  will  interest  some  of  you  in  Theocritus 
sufficiently  to  induce  you  to  read  him  carefully 
through  and  through.  But  remember  that  you 
can  not  get  the  value  of  even  a  single  poem  of  his 
at  a  single  reading.  We  have  become  so  much 
accustomed  to  conventional  forms  of  literature 
that  the  simple  art  of  poetry  like  this  quite  escapes 
us  at  first  sight.  We  have  to  read  it  over  and 
over  again  many  times,  and  to  think  about  it;  then 
only  we  feel  the  wonderful  charm. 


INDEX 


"A  dry  cicale  chirps  to  a  lass 
making  hay,"  297 

Aicard,   Jean,  222 

Aldrich,  Thomas  Bailey,  83 

''Along  the  garden  ways  just 
now,"   31 

"Amaturus,"    56 

"A    Ma    Future,"    51 

"Amelia,"    37 

"Amis  and  Amile,"  Introduc- 
tion, 268-278 

"Amphibian,"    166-172 

Andrews,  Bishop  Lancelot,  loi 

"Angel  in  the  House,  The,"  37 

"An   Invocation,"   299,   302 

"Appreciations  of  Poetry,"  In- 
troduction 

"Arabian    Nights,   The,"    268 

"Arachne,"    191 

Arnold,  Sir  Edwin,   50,   51 

Arnold,  Matthew,   116,  313 

"Art  of  Worldly  Wisdom, 
The,"  127 

Ashe,  Thomas,  58 

"A  simple  ring  with  a  simple 
stone,"  69 

"Atalanta   in   Calydon,"  258 

"Atalanta's  Race,"  26 

"Bhagavad-Gita,  The,"  94. 
Bible,    The,    Introduction,    64, 

92-105,  233,  253,  277 
Bion,  301,  302 
Blake,  William,  96,  176 
Book      of      Common      Prayer, 

The,  233,  253 
Breton,    Jules,    219 
"Bright    star,    would    I    were 

steadfast  as  thou  art,"  46 


Browning,  Robert,  10,  39,  65- 
69,  71,  73,  166-172,  280 

"Burly,  dozing  humble  bee," 
179 

"Busy,  curious  thirsty  fly,"  176 

Byron,  George  Gordon,  Lord, 
lo,    62 

Carew,    Thomas,    61 
Carlyle,  Thomas,   89,   105 
Chesterfield,     Philip     Dormef 
Stanhope,    Fourth    Earl    of, 

."3 
Cicero,  Marcus  Tullius,  29 
Coleridge,    Hartley,    74 
Coleridge,  Samuel  Taylor,  10, 

95.  163 
"Conservative,  A,"  188 
Cooke,  Rose  Terry,  191 
Cory,    William,    Introduction, 

57.  279 
Crashaw,  Richard,  52 

Dante    Alighieri,    23 

"Daughter  of  Cleomenes, 
The,"   305 

Descartes,   Rene,    195 

"Deteriora,"    291 

Dickens,  Charles,  Introduc- 
tion 

"Djins,  Les,"    79 

"Dream  of  Fair  Women,  A," 
297 

"Emaux  et   Camees,"  216 
Emerson,    Ralph    Waldo,     82, 

.178 
"Epigramme   Funeraire,"   210, 

211 


325 


326  INDEX 


"Evelyn  Hope,"  67 

"Fable,    A,"    288 
"Fifine  at  the  Fair,"  i66 
Francis  of  Assisi,  Saint,  196 
Freneau,    Philip,    186 

Gautier  Theophile,  216 
"Gazing   on   stars,   my   star?" 

47 
Goethe,      Johann      Wolfgang 

von,  78,  82 
"Golden    Legend,    The,"    272 
Gracian,   Baltasar,    126 
"Grasshopper,  The,"  226 
Gray,   Thomas,   202 
"Greater   Memory,"   32 
Greek     Anthology,     Introduc- 
tion,  77,   284 
"Grillon   solitaire,"   213 

"Havamal,  The,"  Introduc- 
tion,  105-133 

Hearn,  Lafcadio,  Introduction 

Heredia,  Jose,  Maria  de,  In- 
troduction, 87-91,  205,  209- 
211 

Herodas,  318 

Herrick,    Robert,    78 

"He  that  loves  a  rosy  cheek," 
6t 

Holmes,   Oliver  Wendell,   185 

Hood,  Thomas,  62 

Hugo,  Victor,  26,  43,  79,  89, 
209 

"Idyls  of  the  King,"  299 

"I  love  to  hear  thine  earnest 
voice,"   185 

"In  a  branch  of  willow  hid," 
x86 

"Interpretations  of  Litera- 
ture,"   Introduction 

"lonica,"    Introduction,    56,    57 

"I  strove  with  none,  for  none 
was    worth    my   strife,"    80 

"It  is  a  golden  morning  of 
the  spring,"  40 

Jonson,   Ben,   72,  78 


"Kalevala,  The,"  Introduction, 

228-260 
Keats,  John,   Introduction,  46, 

47,   95,   181 
"King  Solomon  and  the  Ants," 
198 

"La  Demoiselle,"  209 

"Lady  of  Shalott,  The,"  226 

Landor,   Walter  Savage,   80 

Lang,  Andrew,  Introduction, 
313 

Laraartine,   213,    216 

Lamb,  Charles,  201 

"Le   Daimio,"   89 

Lemerre,  Alphonse,  160 

"Le    Samourai,"    87 

"Les  Cigales,"  219 

"Life  and  Literature,"  Intro- 
duction 

de  Lisle,  Leconte,   87 

"Lives  there  whom  pain  has 
evermore  passed  by,"  82 

Locker-Lampson,  Frederic,  50, 

51,   159 

"Locksley  Hall,"  36 

Longfellow,  Henry  Wads- 
worth,  91,  106,  226,  228,  231, 
254,   255.   272 

Lonnrot,  229,  230,  231 

Lovelace,  Richard,  225 

Lubbock,    Sir    John,    137 

Macaulay,  Thomas  Babington, 
161 

"Ma    Libellule,"    205-209 

"Maud,"   24,   25 

Meredith,  George,  Introduc- 
tion, 129 

"Mimes,"  318 

"Mimnermus  in  church,"  281, 
308 

Moschus,    301 

"Nay  but  you,  who  do  not 
love  her,"   65 

"Never  the  time  and  the 
place,"    39 

"New  Ethics,  The,"  Introduc- 
tion 


INDEX 


327 


"New  Year's  Day,  A,"  295 
Nietzsche,  Friedrich  Wilhelm, 

13s,    144 
"Njal-Saga,   The,"   7 

"Ode  on   the   Spring,"   202 
Oldys,  William,  176,  177 
O'Shaughnessy,   Arthur,    30 

"Pansie,"  58 

"Patchwork,"   50 

Pater,     Walter,     Introduction, 

274 
Patmore,   Coventry,   37,    159 
"Pause,  A,"   35 
Plato,  17 

Poe,   Edgar  Allan,   254 
"Poems   of   Places,"   91 
Porson,   Richard,    161 
Powell,  Frederick  York,  106 
"Princess,    The,"    Introduction 


Quiller-Couch, 
Thomas,  172 


Sir      Arthur 


"Reparabo,"  286 

Rossetti,  Christina,  35,  36,  55 

Rossetti,    Dante    Gabriel,     10, 

30,  219 
Ruskin,  John,   105,   150 
"Ruth,"   63,   64 

"Saga    of    King    Olaf,    The," 

106 
Sainte-Beuve,   323 
Saintsbury,   Professor   George, 

lOI 

"Scheveningen  Avenue,"  308 
Scott,  Sir  Walter,  125,  126 
Shakespeare,   William,  226 
Shelley,  Percy  Bysshe,  10 
"She  walks  in  beauty,  like  the 

night,"    62 
"She   was    a    phantom   of   de- 
light,"   60,    61 
"Solitary-Hearted,  The,"  74 
^'Somewhere   or   other,"   55 


"Song  in   time  of  Revolution, 

A,"  258,  259 
"Song     of     Hiawatha,     The," 

228,   231,    254-257 
"Song  of  Songs,"  200 
Spencer,  Herbert,  18,  116,  126, 

135,    137.    142,    143 
"Stay  near  me,  do  not  take  thy 

flight"    165 
Stetson,  Charlotte  Perkins,  187 
Stevenson,  Robert  Louis,   10 
"Story  of  Burnt  Njal,  The,"  7 
"Studies    in   Greek   Poets,"    77 
"Such   Kings    of    shreds    have 

wooed    and   won  her,"   83 
"Sudden   Light,"   30 
Sully-Prudhomme,  Rene,  Fran- 
cois Armande,   87 
"Summum   Bonum,"   71 
Swinburne,  Algernon  Charles, 

254,  258,   259 
Symonds,  John  Addington,  47, 

77 

Ten  Brink,  Bernhard  Egidius 
Konrad,  277 

Tennyson,  Alfred,  Lord,  In- 
troduction, 10,  19,  24,  25, 
36,  47,  95,  17s,  178.  182- 
184,  226,   254,  280,  297,  299 

Tennyson,  Frederick,  40,  41 

Thackeray  William  Make- 
peace,  Introduction 

"The  butterfly  the  ancient 
Grecians  made,"  163 

Theocritus,  Introduction,  300- 
302,   312-324 

"The  poetry  of  earth  is  never 
dead,"  181 

"The  thousand  painful  steps 
at    last    are    trod,"    82 

"The  trembling  arm  I 
pressed,"   43 

"They  told  me,  Heraclitus, 
they  told  me  you  were 
dead,"    296 

"Think  not  thy  wisdom  can 
illume    away,"    81 

Thompson,    Maurice,    27,    28 


328 


INDEX 


"Thou  canst  not  wave  thy 
staff  in  air,"  83 

"To  Lucasta,  on  Going  to  the 
Wars,"   225 

"Two  Fragments  of  Child- 
hood,"  293 

"Two    Voices,    The,"    175 


"Unknown  Eros,  The,"  37 


Vigfusson,  Gudbrandt,  106 


"Voice  of  the  summer  wind," 
183 

Watson,   William,   8i,   159 
"When     spring     grows     old," 

27 
"White   Moth,  The,"   172 
Whittier,  John  Greenleaf,  198 
"Wishes  to  the  Supposed  Mis- 
tress,   52 
Wordsworth,  William,  10,  60^ 

61,  95,   164,   165 
Wycliffe,  John,  98 


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